Patent Description:
Pulsed laser processing of materials has been used in a variety of applications from micro-machining, engraving, 3D printing and laser shock peening. In all applications, the generation of extreme temperatures and pressures at a specific location allows materials to be processed in ways that are generally not available to continuous wave (CW) lasers. For example, laser shock peening is a process that plastically compresses material normal to a surface, resulting in transverse (Poisson) expansion. A thicker or otherwise constrained component's ability to resist the transverse straining results in a local buildup of compressive stress. For thinner components, the peening results in strain and shape change. Such is the case for all types of compressive surface treatments including shot, laser, and ultrasonic peening and processes such as deep cold rolling. <FIG> illustrates how the introduction of compressive stress into a material works when using laser peening, keeping in mind that the concept of plastic compression and transverse expansion is common to all treatments.

Laser peening (LP) is a particularly important post processing method for metal parts. Laser peening is now extensively used to enhance the fatigue lifetime of jet engine fan and compressor blades, and more recently in aircraft structures, and even in spent nuclear fuel storage canisters. It has also been applied to improve surface properties in additively manufactured Maraging steel. Laser peening technology is also used to apply curvature and stretch to thick sections of aircraft wing panels, thus providing precise aerodynamic shaping. In the LP process, short intensive laser pulses create a plasma in a confined geometry, which is shown as area "A" in <FIG>. This results in pressure pulses that create local plastic deformation. An ablative layer can be used in the process or, as in this work, such a layer may be omitted, resulting in only a very shallow (<NUM> to <NUM> thick) layer of recast material that can be left on the surface or easily polished off. Use of a water tamper "B" increases the generating pressure by an order of magnitude thus making the process more efficient. Depending on variables such as material and geometry, existing residual compressive stresses, desired strains or desired microstructure, modifications to stress state and/or shape can be precisely generated in parts in a spot-by-spot manner using the LP method. Laser peened materials typically demonstrate higher cracking and corrosion resistance and are becoming widely used in manufacturing.

Laser peening is also known for creating very small amounts of cold work, typically <NUM>% to <NUM>%, typically leaving the phase, hardness, and yield strength of the treated material unchanged. Shot peening typically requires multiple impacts estimated, for example, at <NUM> impacts for <NUM>% coverage. Due to the spherical nature of the impacts, the shot generates transverse as well as normal forces and plastic deformation. This working of the surface increases hardness and generates cold work. While cold work isn't necessarily bad, physical ball peening has limited penetration depth and therefore efficiency compared to laser shock peening.

<CIT> (describing the features and steps of the preamble of claims <NUM> and <NUM>) discloses a method and an apparatus for use in laser shock peening. The apparatus may include a diode-pumped solid-state laser oscillator configured to output a pulsed laser beam, a modulator configured to modify an energy and a temporal profile of the pulsed laser beam, and an amplifier configured to amplify an energy of the pulse laser beam.

<CIT> discloses a laser machining or cutting method that is carried out by a laser beam machine including a laser oscillator that is a first laser oscillator which emits a pulse of a laser beam that is a first laser beam, and a laser oscillator that is a second laser oscillator which emits a pulse of a laser beam that is a second laser beam differing in wavelength or pulse width from the first laser beam. In the laser beam machining method, the first laser beam and the second laser beam are caused to alternate in irradiating a workpiece.

This section provides a general summary of the present invention, and is not a comprehensive disclosure of its full scope or all of its features.

In one aspect the present invention relates to a laser based system with the features of claim <NUM> for laser peening a workpiece.

In another aspect the present invention relates to a method with the features of claim <NUM> for laser shock peening a workpiece.

A principal feature of the present disclosure is shaping of a laser-induced shock being applied to a material surface, through simultaneous spatio-temporal pulse shaping. In contrast to the conditions shown in <FIG>, a non-uniform input may be used that varies in time to allow a build-up or constructive accumulation of shock at a selected, specific point in the material. Similar to a lens, the phase of the pulse preferably scales across the laser beam such that different components of the laser pulse arrive at the surface at different times.

Referring to <FIG>, a system <NUM> in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention is shown. The system <NUM> may include one or more lasers <NUM> (e.g., pulse laser) and a controller <NUM> for controlling On/Off operation of the laser(s) <NUM>. While the use of two or more lasers is contemplated, for convenience, the following discussion will focus on the system using a single pulse laser <NUM>. The controller <NUM> may be formed by a computer or any other suitable type of processing component which is able to control On/Off operation of the laser <NUM> with the necessary degree of control to create a series of carefully timed pulses. The controller <NUM> may include a non-volatile memory <NUM> (e.g., RAM, ROM, etc.) for storing any data/parameters needed for operation of the system <NUM>. The controller <NUM> may also communicate with a spatio-temporal beam shaping system/software module <NUM> (hereinafter simply "beam shaping module" <NUM>) for controlling the shape (i.e., fluence) of laser energy applied by each pulse of the laser <NUM> to a workpiece <NUM> by a beam 12a of the laser <NUM>.

While it is anticipated that the use of a single, spatio-temporally generated pulse, applied repeatedly, will likely be a preferable implementation of the system <NUM>, <FIG> shows the use of two distinct beam components 12a1 and 12a2 to more easily help the reader visualize how the spatio-temporal beam shaping applied by the system <NUM> operates. In this example one beam component 12a1 of the beam <NUM> consists of an annular or 'donut' shaped beam that arrives at time tA. The other beam component 12a2 is a standard Gaussian profile beam that arrives at a later time tG, but still while the beam 12a1 is being applied to the workpiece <NUM>. If the relative delay between the start of the two beam components 12a1 and 12a2 is τ= tG - tA, the radial position of the annular beam component 12a1 may be given by rA and the laser-induced shock velocity caused by beam component12a1 can be given by vs. The shock from the two pulses 12a1 and 12a2 will coincide at depth δ (denoted by reference number <NUM>) below an upper surface 20a of the workpiece. This produces an enhancement of shock in the material of the workpiece <NUM> for τ = (δlvG) (√<NUM> + r<NUM>/δ<NUM>A - <NUM>).

One skilled in the art will recognize multiple optical configurations that will lead to such an enhancement, so long as individual components of the beam 12a arrive at the same desired location at the same time, given the above equation. This is also illustrated in graph <NUM> of <FIG>. The graph <NUM> illustrates a single laser pulse <NUM> in which the laser fluence is modified throughout the pulse length, and simultaneously spatially over the cross-sectional area of the beam, to achieve the same (or closely similar) result as that described above in connection with the distinct first and second beam pulse components 102a1 and 102a2. The overall length of the pulse <NUM> (comprising both beam pulse components 102a1 and 102a2) may be in the millisecond range, the microsecond range or the nanosecond range, or possibly even shorter. In this example the single pulse <NUM> is initially created to apply a laser fluence, indicated by first beam pulse component102a1, to generate a first shock wave in the workpiece <NUM>. This laser fluence creating the first beam pulse component 102a1 is applied for a first time duration <NUM>, which in this example represents only a fractional portion of the overall duration of the single pulse <NUM>. It will be understood, however, that the first beam pulse component 102a1 may be applied during the full time of the pulse <NUM> or any other fractional portion thereof, depending the needs of a particular application. Then in this example, while the laser fluence creating the first beam pulse component 102a1 is still being applied to the workpiece <NUM>, the pulse <NUM> begins to apply the second beam pulse component 102a2, which in this example has a Gaussian profile beam fluence. As such, in this example the first beam pulse component 102a1 and the second beam pulse component102a2 are being applied simultaneously. Alternatively, the first beam pulse component 102a1 and the second beam pulse component 102a2 may be applied such that they are separated in time, such as indicated by dashed Gaussian beam spot <NUM>. Still further, more than two distinct beam pulse components may be applied, where all overlap one another, or only certain portions of the beam portions overlap one another, or none of the beam portions overlap one another, and all of these variations are contemplated by the present disclosure. And while the beam pulse components 102a1 and 102a2 may be annular and Gaussian profile beams, respectively, virtually any other beam pattern shapes (e.g., square, elliptical, etc.) are readily implementable using the system <NUM>, with suitable modifications to the beam shaping module <NUM> and/or its software. In either instance, the shocks created by the beam pulse components 102a1 and 102a2 created in the workpiece <NUM> propagate toward one another and overlap at a precise X-Y location within the workpiece, and at a precisely controlled depth below the upper surface 20a of the workpiece <NUM>. Furthermore, any number of pulses can be imposed with similar synchronization to achieve optimized processing conditions. Indeed, a continuously varying 'composite' pulse can be contemplated in which the spatio-temporal shaping of a single pulse allows for portions of it to arrive at different locations within the workpiece <NUM> at different times. One possible method to achieve this would be to spatially 'chirp' the laser pulse and send it through dispersive elements that delay different spatial components.

<FIG> shows a laser beam <NUM> in accordance with another construction in which an outer annular beam component <NUM> is created, which is partially overlapped by an inner Gaussian profile beam spot <NUM> (shown in shading) centered within the outer annular beam component. <FIG> shows still another example of a beam construction <NUM> which may be implemented using the system <NUM>. In this example an outer, square, annular beam component <NUM> is created, and a separate Gaussian profile beam spot component <NUM> is centered within the outer, annular beam component <NUM>. In the beams <NUM> and <NUM>, the beam components may be generated to overlap in time or such that they do not overlap in time. These are but a few variations of the shapes that the beam components may take. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the precise cross-sectional shape of the beam components, and the precise degree of time overlap (or no time overlap), will be dictated in part by the specific material being used, the laser fluence being applied with each beam component, and the depth of penetration (or overall effect) that one wishes to achieve with the introduction of compressive stress into the material workpiece <NUM>.

A particular advantage of the system <NUM> and method of the present invention is that laser peening with, for example, a square or rectangular beam, as used here in one embodiment of the system, in contrast generates <NUM>% coverage in only one impact per beam spot (i.e., one impact of the beam 12a). The impact angle, which is determined by the plasma pressure on the surface 20a of the workpiece <NUM> material being acted on and not the laser light incident angle, is totally normal to the surface 20a, thus generating little hardening or cold work. Additionally, the large footprint of the laser beam 12a, typically <NUM> to <NUM> on a side, and the steady nature of the shock, result in a very deep (multiple mm) plastic deformation of the material of the workpiece <NUM> before the shock drops below the yielding limit. Previously published work in this area has compared cold work generated by shot, gravity and laser peening as inferred from the measured angular dispersion in x-ray diffraction. The deep, strong shock produced by the system <NUM> inserts dislocations equally deep into materials which helps resist crack initiation and growth, thereby supporting enhancement in fatigue strength and increasing the lifetime of treated components. The system <NUM> creates especially deep compressive stresses which resist the advance of cracks, as well as providing superior resistance to stress corrosion cracking in susceptible materials. By selectively and compressively prestressing high tensile stress areas of components, the laser peening performed using the system <NUM> also enables even higher levels of tensile fatigue loading before the fatigue limit of a material is reached.

It should also be noted that different embodiments of the system <NUM> may include multiple, synchronized pulses from a single laser or from multiple lasers. Furthermore, because processing may take place at some distance and through dispersive media (e.g., water in laser shock peening or air for long stand-off material processing), the laser system may include additional dispersion compensating elements to account for this.

Claim 1:
A laser based system (<NUM>) for laser peening a workpiece (<NUM>), the system (<NUM>) comprising:
a pulse laser (<NUM>) configured to generate laser pulses;
a controller (<NUM>) for controlling operation of the pulse laser (<NUM>); and characterised by:
the controller (<NUM>) being configured to control the pulse laser (<NUM>) to cause the pulse laser (<NUM>) to generate at least one of the laser pulses with a spatio-temporally varying laser fluence over a duration of the at least one of the laser pulses;
wherein the spatio-temporally varying laser fluence produces first and second beam components (12a1; 102a1; 12a2; 102a2) of the at least one of the laser pulses which arrive at a surface (20a) of the workpiece (<NUM>) at different times; and
wherein the first and second beam components (12a1; 102a1; 12a2;102a2) are timed to create an overlapping shock at a desired location below the surface (20a) of the workpiece (<NUM>).