Effects of Pulsed Laser Micro Polishing on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of S7 Tool Steel

Abstract

The objective of this work is to evaluate the changes in microstructure and mechanical properties of S7 tool steel after surface finishing using pulsed laser micro polishing (PLmP). PLmP has been shown to effectively polish micro metallic parts, but the effects on the microstructure and resulting material properties have not been previously studied for S7 tool steel. This paper will investigate the microstructure present after PLmP and use heat transfer models to compare the observed results to the expected microstructure based on the thermal history.