Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

www.elsevier.com/locate/commatsci

Numerical analysis of the competitive inuence of Marangoni

ow and evaporation on heat surface temperature and
molten pool shape in laser surface remelting
Y.P. Lei a,*, Hidekazu Murakawa b, Y.W. Shi a, X.Y. Li a
a

School of Material Science and Engineering, Beijing Polytechnic University, 100 Ping Le Yuan, Chaoyong District,
Beijing 100022, People's Republic of China
b
Joining and Welding Research Institute of Osaka University, Ibaraki, Osaka 567, Japan

Abstract
A one-domain mixture continuum model is introduced to simulate numerically solid/liquid phase transformation
with a mushy region in laser surface remelting process of a type 304 stainless steel. Emphasis is given to the competitive
inuence of laser-induced alloying element vaporization and Marangoni ow on the heating surface maximum temperature and its distribution as well as the molten pool shapes. The molten pool shapes and uid ow, the temperature
distribution and its peak values on the heating surface have been computed for six calculation cases corresponding to
six dierent pool-surface heat ux balances. The results show that the Langmuir-type vaporization heat loss due to Fe,
Mn, Cr, Ni elements can signicantly reduce the heating surface peak temperature and the pool prole, while jor=oT j is
small or the buoyancy force is considered as one and only driving force. However, when vaporization-type heat loss and
Marangoni ow are coexisting, the free surface temperature distribution and its peak value are markedly aected by the
magnitude order of surface tension gradient and the nature of the relationship between surface tension temperature
coecient and temperature. When jor=oT j > 3:0  10 4 N/m K, the inuence of Langmuir-type vaporization heat loss
is very small and can be ignored. 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Laser surface remelting; Marangoni ow; Temperature distribution; Fluid ow; Molten pool shape; Vaporization; Stainless
steel

1. Introduction
During laser surface remelting of many important engineering alloys, the transient evolution of
temperature and uid ow elds in molten pool,
and then the pool shapes, are evidently aected by

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86-10-673-92523; fax: +86-10673-92523.
E-mail addresses: yplei@bjpu.edu.cn (Y.P. Lei), shyw@
solaris.bjpu.edu.cn (Y.W. Shi).

the simultaneous occurrence of several impotent

physical phenomena that mainly take place on
heating surface. This includes the energy received
by workpiece surface (from irradiation of laser
beam) and the energy leaving the surface by convection of molten pool arising primarily from
spatial variation of Marangoni force on the pool
surface, by radiation and natural convection into
atmosphere, and by pronounced vaporization of
alloying elements. As a result, the molten pool
shape and penetration, the composition of solidied pool, and consequently the ultimate structure

0927-0256/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 9 2 7 - 0 2 5 6 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 1 4 3 - 4

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

Nomenclature
ai
activity of element i
C
heat capacity
e
emissivity
f
mass fraction
g
gravitational acceleration or liquid and
solid volume fraction
h
sensible enthalpy
hc
convection heat transfer coecient
k
thermal conductivity
K0
permeability coecient
L
latent heat of fusion
Lr ; Lz radius and thickness of the workpiece
Lvap:i heat of vaporization of species i
Mi
atomic weight of species i
p
pressure
pi
partial pressure of species i
pi0
equilibrium vapor pressure of species i
qlaser heat transfer ux from laser
qnet net heat input into workpiece
qloss total heat loss from molten pool surface
r; z
radial and axial coordinates

and properties of the solidied surface layer are

aected by these factors. Therefore, in recent
years, there has been an extensive study on heat
transfer, uid ow and alloying-element vaporization for laser surface treatment and welding
processes in both aspects of numerical simulation
and experiment [116]. Moreover, modeling of
laser surface remelting reduces the process optimization and gives an insight into physical phenomena which occurred in the heating region.
In the aspect of numerical simulation, it has
been established that for laser welding or surface
remelting the convection motion in a molten pool
is driven mainly by the combination of Marangoni
force and buoyancy. In the majority of cases
Marangoni force tends to dominate uid ow
pattern and solid/liquid interface in the developing
and solidifying processes of a pool. These Marangoni forces are the result of temperature-dependent surface tension, and hence depend
critically on the temperature distribution on a
molten pool surface. Marangoni forces usually
decrease with increasing temperature in the ab-

277

rb
R
t
T
Ta
u; v

eective radius of heat ux distribution

gas constant
time
temperature
ambient temperature
r-direction and z-direction mixture average velocity

Greek
b
r
l
q
rb
g

symbols
thermal coecient of volume expansion
surface tension
molecular dynamic viscosity
density
StefanBolzmann constant
eective coecient of laser beam

Subscripts
i
representation of certain element
LIQ liquidus
SOL solidus
l
liquid phase
s
solid phase
ref
reference value

sence of impurity admixture. However, in the

presence of surface-active elements Marangoni
force would be increased with increasing temperature when the temperature is less than a threshold
value [17]. Thus, the direction of Marangoni force,
and consequently the recirculation direction of
Marangoni convection would be changed in opposite manner. Moreover, the alloying element
vaporization from pool surface has been considerably investigated both experimentally and theoretically. Block-Bolten and Eager [18] calculated
Langmuir vaporization in welding process and
demonstrated that Fe and Mn were the most
prominent vapor species, and suggested that the
vaporization heat losses play a dominant role in
limiting the maximum temperature attained at the
weld pool surface.
Recently, Choo and Szekely [19] calculated the
surface temperature of mutually coupled spot gas
tungsten arc and weld pool based on Langmuir
equation and a mixed control vaporization model.
They reached an important nding, that is Marangoni ows were responsible for limiting the free

278

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

surface temperature of a weld pool and also govern the temperature distribution of the pool surface. Mundra and Debroy [20] calculated the
vaporization rate and the change of composition
in weld pool during a laser weld process. Their
results have revealed that the heat loss due to
evaporation has a signicant inuence on the peak
temperature in a range of dierent laser powers,
and the vaporization rate predicted by Langmuir
equation was very much higher than the actual
value. In most previous studies on heat transfer
and uid ow for laser surface remelting and laser
welding, a constant surface tension temperature
coecient has been assumed and dierent values
are even adopted for the same material. However,
it should be emphasized that the predicted results
are sensitive to the value of surface tension temperature coecient.
In the present paper, a one-domain mixture
continuum model for the conservation of total
mass, momentum and energy equations is introduced to simulate the development of molten pool,
uid ow and temperature eld in laser surface remelting. Attention is concentrated on the competitive inuence of Marangoni ow and evaporation
on heating surface peak temperature and surface
temperature distributions as well as the molten pool
size and prole. The purpose of computing is to
obtain an insight and understand the complex
processes that occur in laser surface remelting.

2. Modeling of laser surface remelting

2.1. Problem statement
In order to stress the purpose of the present
work, the problem is dened as follows:
A laser beam with a given power density distribution irradiates on the surface of a material.
Much of the incident radiation is reected by the
heating surface and the rest is absorbed by the
base material and transformed it into thermal
energy. The energy absorbed develops a molten
pool. The ow motion in the pool is driven by the
combination of Marangoni force and buoyancy.
Marangoni convection is induced by surface
tension gradient along the pool-heating surface,
on which the temperature distribution is inhomogeneous, while the buoyancy convection is
induced by the temperature gradient inside the
molten pool. To stress the main point of the
work, stationary laser remelting process is chosen
as an example and shown schematically in Fig. 1.
The calculation domain contains three distinct
regions. These are a solid region, a mushy region
consisting of liquid dispersal within the solid
dendrites and a total liquid region. The main
assumptions adopted for the model are summarized as follows.
1. Heat ux from the laser to the heating surface is
a specied symmetric Gaussian distribution.

Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the numerical model for laser surface remelting process. The computational boundaries are represented by ci ; i 1 to 6.

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

2. Heat transfer and uid ow in the molten pool

are adequately described by 2D axisymmetric
time-dependent representation and the uid
ow is laminar and incompressible.
3. Thermophysical properties are constant but
their value may be dierent in solid and liquid
regions, and Boussinesq approximation is
used.
4. The molten pool surface is at.
2.2. Governing equations
According to the above-mentioned assumptions, a set of one-domain mixture continuum
equations describing total mass, momentum and
energy conservation for unsteady heat and uid
ow in liquid, solid and mushy region can be expressed in terms of cylindrical coordinates as follows:
Conservation of mass:
oq 1 oqru oqv

0:
ot r or
oz

Conservation of radial momentum:

oqu 1 orquu oqvu

ot
r
or
oz




op 1 o
ou
o
ou

rl
l

or r or
or
oz
oz
u q
l q
l 2
u:
r q 1 K q1

Conservation of thermal energy:

oqh 1 orquh oqvh

ot
r
or
oz




1 o
k oh
o k oh
r

Sh ;
r or Cs or
oz Cs oz

where the source terms are given by:

Sz

href
;
Cs
oqf1
dH 1 orqu
dH
ot
r
or

qref gb

Sh

oqv
dH
:
oz
5

In Eqs. (1)(4) the mixture (continuum) density,

thermal conductivity, solid mass fraction, liquid
mass fraction and velocities are dened as follows:
q gs qs gl ql ; k gs ks gl kl ;
gs qs
gl ql
; fl
;
fs
q
q
ul fl u; vl fl v:

In the energy Eq. (4), the sensible enthalpy was

considered as the dependent variable, which is
dened as:
Z T
h
Cs dT :
7
Tref

The detailed derivations of the one-domain mixture continuum equations can be found in [21,22].
The denitions of all symbols are presented in the
nomenclature.
2.3. Auxiliary equations

Conservation of axial momentum:

oqv 1 orquv oqvv

ot
r
or
oz




op 1 o
ov
o
ov

rl
l

oz r or
or
oz
oz
l q
v Sz :
K q1

279

The temperature-dependent Darcy damping

term that represents uid ow in the mushy region
is incorporated into the momentum equations via
lqu=Kql and lqv=Kql . The permeability function is assumed analogous to the uid ow in
porous media. It is evaluated from the Carman
Kozeny equation [23],
"
#
gl3
K K0
:
8
2
1 gl
The latent heat is added to the energy equation
via source term Sh that consists of two parts. One is
an unsteady-state term and one is an advectionlike part. In this study, both the terms fl , dened as
the mass fraction of liquid, and dH dened in
Eq. (10), are assumed as a function of sensible
enthalpy alone (generally, the liquid fraction could
be a function of cooling rate, solidication speed,

280

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

and solute concentration in a multi-composition

alloy, and the dH could also be a function of solute
transferred), i.e.,
8
h > hLIQ ;
<1

hSOL 6 h 6 hLIQ ;
fl hhLIQ hSOL
9
hSOL
:
0
h < hSOL ;
Z
dH

Tref

Cl

Cs dT L:

10

Thus the partial derivative of both fl and dH with

respect to time can be essentially expressed as the
partial derivative of sensible enthalpy with respect
to time.
2.4. Boundary conditions
The energy ux density absorbed by the workpiece surface z 0 is determined according to a
specied radically symmetric Gaussian distribution:


3gQ
3r2
qlaser 2 exp
:
11
prb
rb2
The absorption coecient, g, is inuenced by the
nature of surface state and the surface temperature. In the present calculations g takes a value of
0.15.
The heat loss by convection heat transfer, radiate heat transfer and vaporization of alloying
elements is given by
X
qloss hc T Ta rb eT 4 Ta4
Ji Lvap:i ;
12
where the vaporization rate of alloy elements i; Ji ,
is calculated using Langmuir equation and is given
by [24]
Mi pi
Ji p ;
2pMi RT

13

where Ji is in kg=m2 s, pi is the partial pressure of

vapor species i in N=m2 , Mi is the atomic weight, T
is the absolute temperature.
The relationship of Eq. (13) assumes that there
is no impediment to the alloying elements leaving
from the pool surface. It is truly the case only for

vaporization into a perfect vacuum. In practice,

the laser surface process is performed under the
condition of atmospheric pressure. Therefore, the
vaporization rate calculated by Eq. (13) would be
higher than that expected under actual condition,
but Langmuir vaporization, perhaps, just shows
the limiting case of vaporization heat loss.
The partial pressure pi of vapor elements is
evaluated following the method developed by
Block-Bolten and Eagar [18],
log pi log ai log pi0 ;

14

where pi0 is the equilibrium vapor pressure of pure

element i at T. Since the temperature at the molten
pool surface is very high, the activities are taken to
be equal to the corresponding mole fractions.
Thus, the net heat ux on the molten pool surface
is written as
qnet qlaser

qloss :

15

At the surface of workpiece, other than that of

the molten pool, the convection heat transfer and
radiate heat losses for the atmospheric cooling can
be expressed as:
qsrf hc T

Ta rb eT 4

Ta4 :

16

At the pool centerline r 0, oT =or 0.

The moving solid/liquid interface, which is
denitely an integral part of the solution, is automatically determined by liquid fraction eld in the
present computation. For any one control volume,
if fl 1 it locates in liquid region, if fl 0 it is in
solid region, and if 0 < fl < 1 it is in mushy region.
Therefore, boundary conditions for u and v on the
boundary of mushy region are needless to specify.
On the liquid surface of molten pool, the temperature gradient along radial direction produces a
surface tension gradient and then induces uid
ow parallel to the surface. The change in the rate
of surface tension along radial direction must be
balanced by the shear stress and can be formulated
as
    
ou
or
oT
s l

:
17
oz
oT
or
Table 1 shows the overall boundary conditions
corresponding to the boundaries in Fig. 1.

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

Table 1
Boundary conditions for laser surface remelting
Boundary

c1

c2

c3

c4

c5

c6

ou

oz

or
or

ov
0
or
0

T
k

oT
qsrf
oz

oT
qsrf
or

oT
qsrf
oz

oT
qnet
oZ

oT
0
or
oT
0
or

3. Numerical method
The advantage of the developed model is that
the governing equations are valid in liquid, solid
and mushy regions, and there is no need to track
the molten pool geometrical shapes and the extent
of each region. Hence, a xed-grid system can be
used in the numerical calculation. Furthermore,
the governing equations are in the general format
as suggested by Patankar [25] for the numerical
solution of heat and uid ow problems. Therefore, any established numerical procedure for
solving coupled elliptic partial dierential equations could be used with slight modication to the
source terms. In the present study, the numerical
method using a control volume approach is employed to solve the governing equations. In this
case, the dierential equation is integrated over the
control volume to yield the discretization equation. A fully implicit formulation is used for timedependent terms, and power-law scheme is employed to evaluate the combined convection/diffusion coecient. A staggered grid arrangement is
introduced for which the velocities are stored at a
location midway between the grid points on the
control volume faces. All other variables including
pressure are determined at the grid points. This
arrangement enables to handle the pressure linkages through the continuity equation and is known

281

as the Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure-Linked

Equations (SIMPLE) algorithm. The details of
this algorithm are given in [25]. The advectionlike source term in Eq. (4) is treated using upwind
scheme, and the thermal and momentum
boundary conditions are dealt with by additional
source term method. The details about the numerical treatment to source terms and boundary
conditions can be found in a separate article by
the authors [22]. The method for updating the
liquid fraction has been used based on the liquid
fraction temperature approach proposed by Voller and Swaminathan [26]. Following this method, the momentum equations were rst solved in
the iteration process using the most updated
fractions of solid and liquid as well as the permeability at each time step. Then the energy
equation was solved to obtain sensible enthalpy,
with which the temperature can be calculated.
After obtaining the velocity and sensible enthalpy, the fractions of solid and liquid, and the
permeability are updated. This process was repeated for each time step until the convergence
conditions obey the requirement. The overall solution process is separated into two steps. In the
rst step, an outer Newton linearization of source
term of energy equation is used to linearize the
sensible enthalpy with respect to the current values. The second step is the inner solution of linear equations.
The overall solution procedure is shown in
Fig. 2. In the calculation, it is necessary to use
under relaxation parameters for velocities and
the enthalpy to avoid numerical instabilities. For
the two momentum equations, the pressure correction equation and the sensible enthalpy
equation the under relaxation parameters are
0.8, 0.6 and 0.9, respectively. In each time increment, convergence is declared when the
maximum absolute value of nodal mass residual
at the end of iteration is <10 6 , and the maximum of absolute values of the relative dierence
in nodal sensible enthalpy between successive
iterations is <10 4 .
Fig. 3 shows the single grid system for the calculation domain, which is suitable for scalars (e.g.,
h and p) alone. In fact, the grid system consists of
three dierent grids (called the `staggered grid').

282

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

between the predictions and the results reported in

the literature.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Calculation conditions

Fig. 2. Flow chart of calculation. Superscripts old express the

value of previous time increment.

Due to symmetry with respect to the molten pool

centerline, only half of the workpiece was used in
the present calculation. The model uses 57  57
nonuniform grid system. Finer grids are utilized
near the top surface of the workpiece, where steep
temperature and velocity gradients are present.
The time increment is 0.001 s and the calculation is
terminated after the laps of 0.1 s from the start of
laser irradiation.
To test the accuracy of the numerical algorithm
developed in this study, calculations were preformed for a particular case of gallium-melting
problem in a cavity that corresponded to the experimental conditions reported by Gau and Viskanta [27]. A fairly good agreement was found

The material used in the present investigation is

a type of 304 stainless steel. Table 2 lists the
thermophysical properties and input parameters
used in the calculations. The relationships between
equilibrium vapor pressure of pure element i; pi0 ,
with temperature, T, for Fe, Mn, Cr, Ni are taken
from several references, and are given in Appendix
A. A plot of the equilibrium vapor pressures as a
function of temperature is shown in Fig. 4(a),
while the corresponding vaporization mass ux
and heat loss rate are given in Fig. 4(b) and (c),
respectively. Because the 304 stainless steel boils at
about 3000 K, the vaporization mass ux and heat
loss rates shown are extrapolated.
To realize the object of the present work, the
laser parameters are maintained constant for all of
the calculations and a fundamental case without
considering alloying element vaporization and
Marangoni force is chosen as a comparing base
(case 1). On this base, Marangoni force and
Langmuir vaporization heat losses are added to
construct other calculation cases. The six dierent
calculation cases are as follows:
Case 1:
n
X
or=oT 0;
qi 0:
i0

Case 2:
or=oT 0;

n
X

qi 6 0:

i0

Case 3:
or=oT

10 4 ;

n
X

qi 0:

i0

Case 4:
or=oT 10 4 ;

n
X
i0

qi 0:

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

283

Fig. 3. Grid mesh system for numerical simulation.

Case 5:
or=oT

10 4 ;

n
X

qi 6 0:

i0

Case 6:
or=oT 10 4 ;

n
X

qi 6 0;

i0

where n is the number of vaporization elements,

here n 4, representing elements Fe, Mn, Cr, Ni.
It should be mentioned that in the present
study, the surface temperature is allowed to
achieve its dynamic state on the basis of the energy
balance between the input heat ux and the heat
losses by alloying element vaporization, by radiation and convection into atmosphere, by convective heat into the molten pool, and by heat
conduction into the workpiece. Hence, no `cut-o'
temperature is invoked and the calculated surface
temperature may exceed the boiling point of the
material. Because the cut-o surface temperature
prescription would overshadow the strength of the
surface tension shear with oT =or 0, and result in
an unsatisfactory prediction on the characteristics

of the molten pool behavior, therefore, it may be a

better evaluation to allow for the surface temperature reach its dynamic balance state. This method
was also used by Choo et al. in simulating weldpool uid ow and heat transfer.
4.2. Heating surface temperature distribution of the
calculation cases
Fig. 5 shows the predicted results of the heating
surface temperature distribution for the six calculation cases. It can be seen that for case 1 the
temperature at every point on the heating surface
is higher than that of other cases except for cases 3
and 5, which have a negative surface tensiontemperature coecient. The inuence of heat loss
due to Langmuir vaporization on the temperature
distribution of heating surface is clearly understood by comparing case 1 with case 2. For case 2
the surface temperature at each point is signicantly lower than that in case 1. The aected radius can get to 1 mm. The reason for this is evident
that the net heat ux on the top surface of workpiece is dramatically decreased due to alloying element evaporation. When combining Marangoni

284

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

Table 2
Thermophysical properties of the material and input parameters for laser surface remelting [17,18]
Symbol and value
Cl 735
Cs 735
L 2:47  105
Lvap:Fe 6091
Lvap:Mn 4014
Lvap:Cr 6577
Lvap:Ni 6388
MFe 55:85
MMn 54:94
MNi 58:71
MCr 52:00
Tl 1723
Ts 1523

Unit
1

(J kg K )
(J kg 1 K 1 )
(J kg 1 )
(kJ kg 1 )
(kJ kg 1 )
(kJ kg 1 )
(kJ kg 1 )
(g mole 1 )
(g mole 1 )
(g mole 1
(g mole 1 )
(K)
(K)

Symbol and value

Unit

Ta 300
kl 20
ks 20
Lr 4
Lz 2
rb 0:25

(K)
(W m
(W m
(mm)
(mm)
(mm)

ql 7200
qs 7200
l 0:006
e 0:4
b 1:0  10
Q 500

(kg m 3 )
(kg m 3 )
(kg m 1 s 1 )
4

1
1

K 1)
K 1)

(K 1 )
(W)

Fig. 4. (a) The equilibrium vapor pressures. (b) Vaporization mass ux. (c) Heat loss rate for various vaporizing species as a function
of temperature.

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

convection with case 1, we have the case 3 (or=oT

is negative, which should be the case for pure
substances) and case 4 (or=oT is positive, which
should be the case for the presence of impurities).
When or=oT is negative, surface tension induces
the ow of pool surface-liquid from the position
with a higher temperature to the position with a
lower temperature. Therefore, in case 3 situation,
Marangoni convection is an outward ow that
carries the higher temperature liquid at the center
of the pool toward the cold corner of the pool and
results in a high melting rate there. Since the
convection heat transfer in the pool is much higher
than the conduction heat transfer in the solid
material, the outward ow not only makes the
pool extend radially but also gives rise to a temperature plateau near the solidliquid interface. In
case 4, however, Marangoni convection is inward
ow and the liquid on the pool surface moves from
the pool periphery toward the pool center, and
then changes its directions and descends into the
pool base. In this situation the phenomenon of
temperature plateau does not occur. Due to Marangoni convection, the heating surface temperatures in cases 3 and 4 are markedly decreased in
comparison with case 1. This is consistent with
physical reasoning, because the convection ow

Fig. 5. Heating surface temperature distribution of laser surface remelting for the six calculation cases: Case 1: or=oT 0;
Pn
Pn
Case
Case 3:
i0 qi 0;
i0 qi 6 0;
Pn 2: or=oT 0;
4
qi 0;
Case
4:
or=oT 10 4 ;
or=oT 10 ;
i0
Pn
Pn
5: or=oT 10 4 ;
i0 qi 0; Case
i0 qi 6 0; Case 6:
Pn
4
or=oT 10 ;
i0 qi 6 0.

285

eld is responsible for dissipating the thermal energy within the pool. Furthermore, through comparing case 3 with case 4, it is seen that for
negative value of or=oT , the temperature at every
point on the surface is higher than that for positive
value of or=oT . It is the same with the results
predicted by Choo [24]. If the inuences of alloying element vaporization heat losses are considered
together with Marangoni convection, the cases 5
and 6 are obtained. For the case 5, the surface
temperature distribution is similar to the case 3,
but the value of temperature at each corresponding point is slightly lower than that of case 3, and
there still exists a temperature plateau near the
front of mushy region. Because in real practice of
laser surface remelting Marangoni convection and
evaporation heat loss always coexist, the dierence
between the two plots reects the actual eect of
alloying element vaporization heat loss on heating
surface temperature distribution. For cases 4 and
6, the temperature distribution exhibits a similar
trend with the cases 3 and 5.
4.3. Molten pool shape and velocity elds of the
calculation cases
The dierences of the molten pool circulation
and of the pool surface energy balance must aect
the pool proles. Fig. 6(a)(f) show the molten
pool proles and velocity elds of the six calculation cases at the heating time of 0.1 s after laser
beam irradiating. Comparing Fig. 6(a) with (b), it
can be seen that in the calculation condition of
case 2 both the pool radius and depth are signicantly less than those in the case 1, but the pool
prole is similar to each other and looks like a
half-ellipse. It is revealed that heat loss due to alloying element vaporization can only reduce the
heat input and not change the circulation patterns
in the pool. For the case 3 (Fig. 6(c)), the negative
surface-tension temperature coecient or=oT
< 0 induces an outward ow as mentioned in the
preceding section. This ow with a higher temperature collides with the interface of solid/liquid
at the cold corner of the pool and results in a
relatively higher melting rate there than at the pool
base. Consequently, the molten pool prole revealed a shallow and wide shape. For the case 4

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Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

Fig. 6. Molten pool size, prole and velocity elds corresponding to the calculation cases in Fig. 5 for laser surface remelting. Solid line
is solidus, and dashed line is liquidus.

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

287

Fig. 7. The heating surface temperature distributions with dierent values of or=oT , (a) or=oT < 0 and (b) or=oT > 0.

(Fig. 6(d)), or=oT is positive, and the ow moves

inward from the pool periphery to the pool center,
where the ow changes its direction and descends
into the pool base. The descending hot ow collides with the pool base, where the hot ow
transfers heat energy to the front of solid/liquid
interface and results in a higher melting rate than
at the cold corner of the pool. Thus, the pool
prole revealed a narrow and depth shape. Comparing case 3 with case 5 (Fig. 6(e)) and case 4 with
case 6 (Fig. 6(f)), we can nd the inuence of
Langmuir vaporization heat loss on the pool size
and prole. The pool size in the condition of
considering the heat loss of vaporization is slightly
less than that without considering this kind of heat
loss, but the pool prole is similar to each other. It
is again revealed that the heat loss of vaporization
does not change the ow patterns in the pool with
and without considering Marangoni force.
4.4. Peak surface temperature with dierent constant surface tension coecients
In view of the considerable uncertainty that exists
regarding the precise nature of the relationships
between surface tension and temperature, and the
precise representation of the vaporization in practical atmospheric pressure, it is of interest to explore
the competitive inuence of Langmuir-type vaporization and Marangoni ow on the peak surface

temperature of the pool. To demonstrate this point

a series of calculations were performed. Figs. 7(a)
and (b) show the calculated temperature distributions on the heating surface without Langmuir-type
vaporization for dierent values of or=oT < 0 and
or=oT > 0, respectively, and Fig. 8 indicates the
predicted values of the peak surface temperature
with the value of or=oT as a parameter. In these
calculations, we selected a constant value for this
term in both the conditions with and without
Langmuir-type vaporization. It is seen that for both
positive and negative values of or=oT , the peak
surface temperature markedly decreases with increasing the values of jor=oT j under the condition
without Langmuir vaporization heat loss, and
slowly decreases with increasing the values of
jor=oT j under the condition with Langmuir-type
vaporization heat loss. When jor=oT j 3:0  10 4
N/m K, the values of peak surface temperatures are
nearly equal for both the situations with and without considering heat loss of Langmuir vaporization.
The temperature dierence between the two curves
in Fig. 8(a) and (b) reects the contribution of
Langmuir-type vaporization heat loss to the peak
surface temperature. Because this dierence value is
decreased with increased jor=oT j, it shows that the
smaller the value of jor=oT j, the larger the eect of
Langmuir-type vaporization on the peak surface
temperature. Therefore, when using conduction
model to simulation laser surface remelting or the

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Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

Fig. 8. The inuence of surface tension temperature coecient on the peak surface temperature with and without vaporization heat
loss for laser surface remelting. (a) or=oT < 0 and (b) or=oT > 0.

treated materials with a small value of jor=oT j, it is

needed to consider the heat loss of element vaporization. When jor=oT j > 3:0  10 4 N/m K, ignoring the eect of heat loss by element vaporization
cannot give rise to an obvious inuence on the
predicted results.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, a one-domain mixture continuum
model has been introduced to describe solid/liquid
phase transformation with a mushy region in laser
surface remelting process of type 304 stainless
steel. Six dierent calculation cases, which represent dierent energy balance conditions on the
heating surface, were performed to illustrate the
competitive inuence of the possible limited heat
loss by laser-induced alloying element vaporization (Langmuir vaporization) and Marangoni ow
(thermocapillary ow) on the heating surface
temperature distribution and its peak values as
well as the molten pool shapes.
If a pure conduction model is used or only
buoyancy-driven ow is considered one would
more overpredict the surface temperature. In this
case if the allowance is made for vaporization heat
loss by Langmuir mechanism which would significantly overpredict the vaporization rate for
practical laser surface remelting but reect the
limiting inuence, the temperature on the pool
surface is markedly lower than that without con-

sidering vaporization. If the vaporization heat loss

is neglected, but Marangoni-driven ow is considered, the temperature on the pool surface also
dramatically decreases comparing with the conduction model or only on consideration of buoyancy driven ow. If one made a combination of
Marangoni ow and Langmuir-type vaporization,
the temperature distribution on the pool surface is
similar to that without vaporization, when jor=oT j
is greater than 10 4 N/m k.
The temperature distribution and its peak
value on the pool surface are markedly aected
by the magnitude order of surface-tension temperature coecient and the nature of relationship
between
surface-tension
temperature
coecient and temperature. When or=oT < 0,
the ow is outward from the center of the pool
to the pool periphery and result in a shallow
and wide pool shape. However, when or=oT > 0,
the ow direction is just opposite with the
or=oT < 0, the pool reveals a relative narrow
and depth prole.
The inuences of vaporization heat loss on the
pool surface temperature and its peak value are
restricted by the magnitude order of surface tension-temperature coecient. The smaller the value
of jor=oT j, the larger the inuence of Langmuirtype vaporization on the peak surface temperature. When jor=oT j > 3:0  10 4 N/m K, ignoring
the eect of heat loss by element vaporization
cannot give rise to an obvious inuence on the
predicted results.

Y.P. Lei et al. / Computational Materials Science 21 (2001) 276290

Acknowledgements
This research is supported by National `973'
Project Foundation of China under grant no.
G1998061500.
Appendix A
The equilibrium vapor pressures of vaporizing
species, Fe, Mn, Cr and Ni, over the respective
pure liquids are calculated using the following
equations:
0
ln pFe
atm

4:3734  104 13:98

(cf. Ref. [20]),

0
N=m2
log pMn

5:58  10 4 T

1:503  104 =T 12:609

(cf. Ref. [9]),

0
N=m2
log pCr

13:505  103 =T 33:658log T

8:381  10 7 T 2

9:290  10 3 T

87:077

(cf. Ref. [9]),

0
N=m2
log pNi

3:59  103 =T 70:940 log T

15:140  10 7 T 2

18:042  10 3 T

214:297

(cf. Ref. [9]).

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