Lower Length Scale Informed Continuum Modeling of Femtosecond Laser Processing

Jacob Pursley, Tyler Soenen, Curtis Maxon, Nicholas A. Putnam, and Patrick R. Thomas

Department of Energy’s Kansas City National Security Campus Managed by Honeywell FM&T



Femtosecond Laser processing of new materials relies on tribal knowledge, trial-and-error, and design of experiments to refine new material processing parameters. The use of ab-initio calculations and molecular dynamics two-temperature models provides the values of optical and thermal penetration depths and the ablation threshold for steel, which are passed up to two continuum scale models. The first model simulates the macroscopic ablation utilizing a level-set methodology. The second model describes the raster patterns and the material processing as a function of time. The results were then used to develop a test design of experiments for comparison against previous new material processing experiments.



The Department of Energy’s Kansas City National Security Campus is operated and managed by Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, LLC under contract number DE-NA0002839.



NSC-614-5734 dated 10/2023 Unclassified Unlimited Release