The process of partial melting and resolidification of a thin metal film subjected to a high-power laser beam is considered. The mathematical model of the process is based on the second-order dual phase lag equation (DPLE). Until now, this equation has not been used for the modeling of phase changes associated with heating and cooling of thin metal films and the considerations regarding this issue are the most important part of the article. In the basic energy equation, the internal heat sources associated with the laser action and the evolution of phase change latent heat are taken into account. Thermal processes in the domain of pure metal (chromium) are analyzed and it is assumed that the evolution of latent heat occurs at a certain interval of temperature to which the solidification point was conventionally extended. This approach allows one to introduce the continuous function corresponding to the volumetric fraction of solid or liquid state at the neighborhood of the point considered, which significantly simplifies the phase changes modeling. At the stage of numerical computations, the authorial program based on the implicit scheme of the finite difference method (FDM) was used. In the final part of the paper, the examples of numerical computations (including the results of simulations for different laser intensities and different characteristic times of laser pulse) are presented and the conclusions are formulated.
Analytical solution of the dual phase lag equation describing the laser heating of thin metal film