Enthalpy model for heating, melting, and vaporization in laser ablation

• Main Authors: Vasilios Alexiades, David Autrique
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Texas State University 2010-09-01
• Series: Electronic Journal of Differential Equations
• Subjects: Laser ablation; phase change; enthalpy scheme; thermochemistry; finite volume scheme
• Online Access: http://ejde.math.txstate.edu/conf-proc/19/a1/abstr.html

Laser ablation is used in a growing number of applications in various areas including medicine, archaeology, chemistry, environmental and materials sciences. In this work the heat transfer and phase change phenomena during nanosecond laser ablation of a copper (Cu) target in a helium (He) background gas at atmospheric pressure are presented. An enthalpy model is outlined, which accounts for heating, melting, and vaporization of the target. As far as we know, this is the first model that connects the thermodynamics and underlying kinetics of this challenging phase change problem in a self-consistent way.