Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

A Comparative Stress Corrosion Cracking Study of Stainless Steel Sheets Marked with Laser and Conventional Mechanical Stamping

  • Published:
Lasers in Manufacturing and Materials Processing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This communication reports the result of a comparative study of laser marking with conventional mechanical stamping of AISI 304 stainless steel sheet by subjecting the marked specimens to stress corrosion cracking susceptibility test. A single mode fiber laser was made use of for this work to mark the steel specimens while a hydro-pneumatic press was used to effect marking in the conventional way. Mechanically stamped specimens exhibited better resistance to stress corrosion cracking compared to specimens marked with laser. The cracking susceptibility of laser marked samples was found to be critically dependent on the fluence of laser used to cause marking. Extent of cracking was found to increase with fluence. Reduced stress corrosion cracking susceptibility of mechanically stamped specimens was attributed to the presence of compressive residual stresses in and around the mark. This work establishes that upon scaling down its fluence appropriately, a laser can be a workable tool for marking stainless steel components meant for application in corrosive media.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

No data was used.

References

  1. Kisanov, S.V., Glebov, V.V.: Application of electrochemical marking methods in machine building. Surf. Eng. Appl. Electrochem. 5, 1–4 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Steen, W.M., Mazumdar, J.: Laser Material Processing. Springer, London (2010)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  3. Qi, J., Wang, K., Zhu, Y.M.: A study on the laser marking of stainless steel. J. Mater. Process. Technol. 139, 273–276 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Leone, C., Genna, S., Caprino, G., Iorio, D.I.: AISI 304 stainless steel marking by a Q switched diode pumped Nd-YAG laser. J. Mater. Process. Technol. 210, 1297–1303 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Svanter, M., Kucera, M., Houdkova, S.: Possibilities of stainless steel laser marking. Proccedings of 21st International Conference on Metallurgy and Materials METAL (2012)

  6. Antonczak, A.J., Kocon, D., Nowak, M., Koziol, P., Abramski, K.M.: Laser induced colour marking- sensitivity scaling for a stainless steel. Appl. Surf. Sci. 264, 229–236 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Antonczak, A. J., Nowak, M., Koziol, P., Kaczmarek, P. R., Waz, A. T., Abramski, K. M: Laser induced colour marking of stainless steel. Proceedings SPIE, Laser Technology 2012 Szczecin, Poland 87030G (2013)

  8. Pacquentin, W., Caron, N., Oltra, R.: Nanosecond laser surface modification of AISI 304L stainless steel : Influence the beam overlap on pitting corrosion resistance. Appl. Surf. Sci. 288, 34–39 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Vu, T.T., Hoang, H.H: Investigating the Effect of Pulsed Fiber Laser Parameters on the Roughness of Aluminium Alloy and Steel Surfaces in Cleaning Processes. Lasers Manuf. Mater. Process (2021)

  10. Rasheed, B.G., Ibrahem, M.A., Ibrahim, M.H.: Surface Modification of Nobel Metals and Stainless Steel by Pulsed Nd: YAG Laser. Lasers Manuf. Mater. Process. 8, 45–59 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Ismail, R.A., Hamoudi, W.K., Shakir, Z.S.: Modifications of Hydroxyapatite properties by nanosecond Nd: YAG laser pulses. Lasers Manuf. Mater. Process. 7, 305–316 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Lecka, K. M., Antonczak, A.J., Szubzda, B., Wojcik, M.R., Stepak, B.D., Szymczyk, P., Trzcinski, M., Ozimek M., Abramski: Effects of laser induced oxidation on the corrosion resistance of AISI 304 stainless steel. J. Laser Appl. 28, 032009–1–9 (2016)

  13. Sunil kumar, B., Kain, V., Banerjee, K., Maniyar, P.D., Sridhar, S., Kumar, J., Kumar J: Effect of oxidation on corrosion behaviour of austenitic steel 304L welds. Adv. Mate.r Res. 794, 598–605 (2013)

  14. Shaikh, H.: Stress Corrosion Cracking of Austenitic Stainless Steel Weldments. In: Khatak, H.S., Raj, B. (eds.) Corrosion of Austenitic Stainless Steels Mechanism, Mitigation and Monitoring, pp. 166–189. Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge (2002)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  15. Raja, V.S., Shoji, T.: Stress Corrosion Cracking Theory and practice. Woodhead Publishing, Cambridge (2011)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  16. Li, Z.L., Zheng, H.Y., Teh, K.M., Liu, Y.C., Lim, G.C., Seng, H.L., Yakovlev, N.L.: Analysis of oxide formation induced by UV laser coloration of stainless steel. Appl. Surf. Sci. 256, 1582–1588 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Svanter, M., Kucera, M., Smazalova, E., Houdkova, S., Cerstvy, R.: Thermal effects of laser marking on microstructure and corrosion properties of stainless steel. Appl. Optics 55, D35–D45 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Laakso, P., Pantsar, H., Leinonen, H., Helle, A: Preliminary study on corrosion and wear properties of laser color marked stainless steel. ICALEO, 212–221 (2008)

  19. Valette, S., Steyer, P., Richard, L., Forest, B., Donnet, C., Audouard, E.: Influence of femtosecond laser marking on the corrosion resistance of stainless steels. Appl. Surf. Sci 252, 4696–4701 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Krawczyk, B., Paul, C., Hobbs, J., Engelberg, D.L.: Atmospheric chloride induced stress corrosion cracking of laser engraved type 316L stainless steel. Corros. Sci 142, 93–101 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Aniruddha, K., Bhatt, R. B., Biswas, D. J: Parametric characterization of underwater ablation vis a vis laser assisted standard defect simulation in sintered UO2 pellets. J. Nucl. Mater, 540, 152351(2020).

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Pravin Kumar Singh for his assistance during the experiments. They acknowledge the staff of Nano-Functional Materials Lab, RRCAT for providing the SEM images. They also acknowledge S. Pradhan, R.B.Bhatt for their support and encouragement.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fuel Fabrication, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Tarapur, Maharashtra, 401502, India

    Aniruddha Kumar

  2. Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, 452013, India

    R. K. Gupta, D. C. Nagpure, P. Ganesh & R. Kaul

  3. L&PT Division, BARC, Trombay, 400085, India

    D. J. Biswas

Authors
  1. Aniruddha Kumar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. R. K. Gupta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. D. C. Nagpure
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. P. Ganesh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. R. Kaul
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. D. J. Biswas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Aniruddha Kumar.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

We do not have any conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Appendices

Appendix

Calculation of effective laser fluence per spot area

In the marking process, the laser beam moves with a constant speed of v mm/s at a constant repetition rate, \({R}_{rep}\). A single spot is thereby covered by several pulses as shown in Fig. 11. The diameter of each spot is given by, dspot = \(\frac{4{M}^{2}}{\pi }\frac{f\lambda }{D}\), where f is the focal length of the lens, D is the diameter of the unfocussed beam, M2 is the beam quality parameter and λ is the wavelength of the laser. The percentage overlap of each pulse depends on the focussed beam diameter, repetition rate of the laser and the linear speed of the scanning beam.

Fig. 11
figure 11

Schematic showing overlapping of pulses during laser marking

Full size image

Mathematically it is expressed as, % OL = (1 -\(\frac{v}{{R}_{rep}{.d}_{spot}}\)), where v is the speed of the scanning beam, Rrep is the repetition rate of the laser pulses and dspot is the focal spot diameter of the beam. Number of overlapping pulses over a spot area is thus dependent on the spot diameter and percentage overlap of the successive laser pulses. In our experiment the focal spot diameter was measured to be 35 microns, thus percentage overlap with a scanning beam speed of 200 mm/s was calculated to be 94%. Thus each spot was irradiated approximately by seventeen laser pulses. The energy contribution of each overlapping pulse is thus different in the irradiated spot. The contribution of each pulse was thus considered in calculating the effective fluence. The effective energy incident on a spot area due to exposure of N number of pulses, each having energy of E Joule is thus estimated to be,

Effective energy = N \(\left[1- \frac{x}{2{d}_{spot}}\left(N-1\right)\right]E\), where N is the number of pulses irradiating the spot area, x is the distance travelled by the laser beam between two successive pulses, dspot is the focal spot diameter. Effective fluence( Fe) is thus,

Fe = \(\frac{Effective energy per spot area}{area of the focal spot}\)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kumar, A., Gupta, R.K., Nagpure, D.C. et al. A Comparative Stress Corrosion Cracking Study of Stainless Steel Sheets Marked with Laser and Conventional Mechanical Stamping. Lasers Manuf. Mater. Process. 8, 409–425 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40516-021-00154-2

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40516-021-00154-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation