Patent ID: 11946128
Assignee: NUTECH VENTURES
Field: Materials, metallurgy (Chemistry)
Classification: CPC C | IPC C

Claim 9:
10. A method for remotely desensitizing a metal alloy, the method comprising:
exposing a surface of the metal alloy to a controlled scanning laser beam irradiation output by a laser and having an average laser output power over 10 W or an output laser pulse energy over 10 mJ;
wherein a surface of the metal alloy is exposed to the laser beam irradiation directly or through one or more coating layers, including a paint, a nonskid layer, or other coating layer(s);
wherein a distance between an output window of the laser beam irradiation and the metal alloy is between about 0.5 m to about 100 m; and
wherein the scanning laser beam is controlled to scan across a portion of the surface of metal alloy comprising two or more locations and heat a shallow surface layer of the portion of the metal alloy at a desired location and depth, which keeps a local temperature in this laser heated region between a solvus temperature and an annealing temperature of the metal alloy, without heating the entire metal alloy, to reduce a degree of sensitization of the metal alloy at the desired location.