Production of Self-Composite Microstructure by Laser Tailoring

The present work firstly succeeded to produce' self-composite microstructure' in an A2024-T3 aluminum alloy sheet utilizing a fiber-laser spot heating system which has been newly designed and developed in my group. The spot heating system generates 100W in maximum power and enables to focus the laser beam into 3um in diameter on the surface of specimen. It also has a function to scan the beam for spot heating with any programmed pattern. A' stripe-like' laser-patterned A2024-T3 aluminum alloy sheet clearly shows anisotropy in bending strength because of the alternative change of soft and hard region produced in the monolithic sheet, which is like a composite material.