Fluid flow in laser melted pool

The convective heat transfer and fluid flow are analyzed. Transient two dimensional model for surface tension driven fluid flow in laser melted pool is developed. The model describes the transient behavior of the heat transfer process of a stationary band source. Some semi-quantitative understanding of scanning is obtained by a coordinate transformation. Four dimensionless parameters arising from the general 3-D mathematical formulation are: Reynolds number (Re), Prandtl number (Pr), Surface tension number (S), and the melting temperature (T*melt). Each of these would govern the characteristics of the problem and each has its own physical interpretation. In the case of band source, Re and S are grouped into one parameter--their product. Numerical solution, using the program SOLA is obtained for two different Prandtl number 0.1 and 0.02.