Two-dimensional laser-induced thermal ablation modeling with integrated melt flow and vapor dynamics

A new detailed, physics-based computational framework for the direct prediction of material ablation under nanosecond pulsed laser irradiation is presented. The framework, named directed energy illumination and visualization (DEIVI), integrates two-dimensional (axisymmetric) models for the following physical processes within a single framework for the first time: (i) coupling of the laser irradiation with the solid, (ii) transient heat conduction in the condensed (solid and melt) phases including melt front tracking, (iii) flow of the melt layer under the action of recoil pressure, (iv) vaporization of the melt and development of recoil pressure, and (v) dynamics of the vapor/gas. The solution for transient heat conduction and melt interface tracking using the enthalpy method is similar to the development by Ho et al. [J. Appl. Phys. 78, 4696–4709 (1995)]; however, they did not model the flow of the melt layer and modeled one-dimensional heat flow in the solid. To model the melt flow, DEIVI solves the inc...