Research Associate in High Fidelity Modelling and Verification of L-Dew

Laser-beam interactions with metallic systems are a complex interplay between thermal, momentum and topological changes. Further complications arise when sufficient power density is achieved and a thermo-capillary or ‘keyhole’ region is formed in which the beam can undergo multiple internal reflections. Understanding the evolution of this keyhole region and surrounding liquid metal has a variety of applications in advanced manufacturing and defense. This is a DMEx funded project. Predicting these mechanisms is a complex mathematical problem that involves the solution of a framework which captures the conservation of momentum, energy and mass with some ray-tracing implementation of the discretized laser beam. Simulations of such complex systems often employ simplifications of the governing physics. One example is to assume that flow is incompressible. The more accurate approach is to capture the volumetric dilation during vapourisation/condensation as a metallic substrate vapourises and then occupies a volume many orders of magnitude greater/lesser than its initial volume. These higher fidelity approaches that capture the volumetric dilation accurately are inherently more computationally expensive, but more faithfully simulate the application of high energy density laser sources to multi-component metallic substrates. Such a high-fidelity modelling framework, that captures the volumetric dilation effects, has recently been developed at The University of Manchester in the Department of Materials.