Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
An investigation is reported of the laser surface melting of four alloy steels with carbon contents ranging up to 1 wt%. Studies were made of the profiles, microstructures and hardnesses of zones produced using a laser power of 1.7 kW and a range of traverse speeds and beam diameters. The observed zone profiles were correlated with calculations from a three-dimensional, moving source, heat transfer model. In the high carbon steels, the shallow laser melted zones contained substantial amounts of retained austenite.