Date of Award

Spring 2002

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Program/Concentration

Materials Science and Engineering

Committee Director

K. Nagarathnam

Committee Member

M. C. Gupta

Committee Member

K. Williamson

Call Number for Print

Special Collections; LD4331.E56 H86 2002

Abstract

In the five decades since its invention, the laser has been used to commercially process materials in an increasingly diverse number of ways. The precise control over the delivery of the incident energy that is afforded by a laser allows for a wide variety of applications. All of these processes depend in some way on two important physical properties of the material being treated. These properties are known as the optical reflectivity and absorptivity of a material. The values of each of these properties are different for each material and are influenced by a number of factors, including surface roughness, surface layers, angle of incidence, wavelength, and temperature of the substrate.

In this work, specimens of Type 304 stainless steel, Al-2090, commercially pure copper, and Ti-6Al-4V were tested for their reflective and absorptive properties. The laser used was a He-Ne laser of λ =0.6328 μm, in a temperature range of 23-350 °C. These specimens have been shielded with inert argon. The data from these experiments have been compared with the Hagen-Rubens relation to analyze its applicability at visible wavelengths. The results show that the Hagen-Rubens equation over predicts the reflectivity of each sample for the tested wavelength.

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DOI

10.25777/gmhq-d919

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