Thermal design and experimental analysis of laser and electron beam hardening

Dimensionless correlations for an easy prediction of the hardened depth in electron and laser beam heating treatments are derived from two analytical thermal models. Electron beam heat treating is carried out on 9Cr-2Mo and C40 steels. Effects of the translation speed and the spot dimensions were taken into account. The fairly good agreement between analytical and experimental data suggests that the proposed correlations can be used in applications.