In the field of Laser Shock Peening (LSP) as well as various laser materials processing, a uniform beam is favorable for processing quality, and a square-shaped beam is advantageous for process efficiency, respectively. A beam homogenizer makes it pos...
In the field of Laser Shock Peening (LSP) as well as various laser materials processing, a uniform beam is favorable for processing quality, and a square-shaped beam is advantageous for process efficiency, respectively. A beam homogenizer makes it possible to generate a square-shaped uniform beam simultaneously. The beam homogenizer is an optical system that has already been applied to the other materials processing, but there is no beam homogenizer for the LSP yet. Until now, it has been difficult to fabricate a lens array which is the fundamental optics of a beam homogenizer for the LSP. For the design, it is essential to manage the risks of the coating damage and the plasma formation inside the optical system due to the high energy input beam. Despite the absence of the previous studies on the beam homogenizer for the LSP, this study has dealt with the overall actual design issues. Also, we proposed an optical system that can change the area of a square-shaped beam irradiated by adding a zoom function to a conventional beam homogenizer in real time. In this study, we designed a zoom homogenizer suitable for laser shock peening.
In Chapter I, we look at the theoretical background and motivation of this study. We review the concept and research trend of laser shock peening. And we propose a beam homogenizer which can generate a square-shaped uniform beam.
In Chapter II, we deal with the working distance of the beam homogenizer which should be considered when applying square-shaped beam homogenizer to laser shock peening process. For this, we configured the beam homogenizer in two kinds of simulation: illumination and diffraction methods. We performed the illumination simulation based on geometrical ray optics with CODE V, a commercial lens design program. And we used Fresnel diffraction theory and convolution theory for the diffraction simulation. In both simulations, we obtained multiple beam data around the image plane of the beam homogenizer. Since the plasma threshold of the metal target is an essential variable due to the characteristics of the laser shock peening process, we considered the plasma threshold in the simulations. We defined the range where the energy efficiency over the plasma threshold is above 0.5 as the depth of focus(DOF) of the beam homogenizer for the LSP (LSP-DOF). Also, we defined the range where the root mean square(RMS) of the beam distribution over the plasma threshold is less than 5% as the depth of uniformity(DOU) of the beam homogenizer for the LSP(LSP-DOU). And we defined the range where these two ranges overlap is defined as the working distance(WD) of the beam homogenizer for the LSP (LSP-WD). Finally, we show the effect of some parameters on the LSP-DOF, LSP-DOU, and LSP-WD.
In Chapter III, we introduce the concept, features, and limitations of the conventional beam homogenizer, and deal with the newly proposed zoom homogenizer design method. The zoom homogenizer was assumed to be a thin lens and was designed using the equivalent focal length of the lens system. The conventional beam homogenizer has an imaging condition when there are two lens arrays. The generated illumination field is uniform, and the edge is clear in imaging condition. However, under this condition, zooming is impossible. When changing the distance between the lenses to zoom, the imaging condition is broken, and a clear beam is not formed. In this chapter, the imaging condition is derived to produce sharp illumination fields at all zoom positions. We verified the validity of the zoom homogenizer with CODE V, a commercial lens design program. The size of the illumination field was changed at each zoom position, but the sharpness remained the same.
In Chapter IV, we have dealt with the design of a zoom homogenizer suitable for an LSP to apply the zoom homogenizer to the LSP. Though we designed the zoom homogenizer with a thin lens approximation, in this chapter, we considered the thickness of lenses to place the lenses precisely. We derived the imaging condition of the zoom homogenizer considering the thickness. In consideration of the high energy density of the input beam to be injected into the homogenizer, we confirmed the illumination simulation whether the coating of the lens is tolerable. We also performed a risk analysis for plasma formation that may occur at the focus of the main beam and the ghost beam. We also analyzed the LSP-WD characteristics defined in Chapter II for the designed zoom homogenizer. A monitoring system has been designed for real-time monitoring the square-shaped beam or the plasma at the metal target. The zoom homogenizer system for the LSP proposed in this study contains a waterjet type nozzle, and the nozzle allows water to be laminar flow inside of itself. Finally, we provide the final drawings of the design of the zoom homogenizer system for the LSP designed so far.