Melting and thermocapillary convection under the action of pulsed laser radiation with an inhomogeneous spatial distribution

A theoretical study is reported of melting and thermocapillary convection under the action of laser radiation with a nonmonotonic spatial distribution of the power density. An analysis is made of changes in the geometry of the molten bath with time. The transition from a nonmonotonic boundary of a melt, corresponding to the spatial distribution of the radiation, to a monotonic one occurs in a time of the order of 1 ms when the power density of laser radiation is 10⁵ W/cm². The vortex structure of the flow in the molten bath is governed by the spatial distribution of the laser radiation in such a way that each local power density maximum corresponds to two vortices with oppositely directed velocity components.