Rapid online analysis of trace elements in steel using a mobile fiber-optic laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy system

A mobile fiber-optic laser-induced breakdown spectrometer(FO-LIBS) prototype was developed to rapidly detect a large quantity of steel material online and quantitatively analyze the trace elements in a large-diameter steel tube.Twenty-four standard samples and a polynomial fitting method were used to establish calibration curve models.The R^2 factors of the calibration curves were all above 0.99,except for Cu,indicating the elements’ strong self-absorption effect.Five special steel materials were rapidly detected in the steel mill.The average absolute errors of Mn,Cr,Ni,V,Cu,and Mo in the special steel materials were 0.039,0.440,0.033,0.057,0.003,and0.07 wt%,respectively,and their average relative errors fluctuated from 2.9% to 15.7%.The results demonstrated that the performance of this mobile FO-LIBS prototype can be compared with that of most conventional LIBS systems,but the more robust and flexible characteristics of the FO-LIBS prototype provide a feasible approach for promoting LIBS from the laboratory to the industry.

Cluster analysis of polymers using laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy with K-means

Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy（LIBS） combined with K-means algorithm was employed to automatically differentiate industrial polymers under atmospheric conditions.The unsupervised learning algorithm K-means were utilized for the clustering of LIBS dataset measured from twenty kinds of industrial polymers.To prevent the interference from metallic elements,three atomic emission lines（C I 247.86 nm,H I 656.3 nm,and O I 777.3 nm） and one molecular line C–N（0,0） 388.3 nm were used.The cluster analysis results were obtained through an iterative process.The Davies–Bouldin index was employed to determine the initial number of clusters.The average relative standard deviation values of characteristic spectral lines were used as the iterative criterion.With the proposed approach,the classification accuracy for twenty kinds of industrial polymers achieved 99.6%.The results demonstrated that this approach has great potential for industrial polymers recycling by LIBS.

Quantitative analysis of steel and iron by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy using GA-KELM

According to the multiple researches in the last couple of years, laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS) has shown a great potential for rapid analysis in steel industry.Nevertheless, the accuracy and precision may be limited by complex matrix effect and selfabsorption effect of LIBS seriously. A novel multivariate calibration method based on genetic algorithm-kernel extreme learning machine(GA-KELM) is proposed for quantitative analysis of multiple elements(Si, Mn, Cr, Ni, V, Ti, Cu, Mo) in forty-seven certified steel and iron samples.First, the standardized peak intensities of selected spectra lines are used as the input of model.Then, the genetic algorithm is adopted to optimize the model parameters due to its obvious capability in finding the global optimum solution. Based on these two steps above, the kernel method is introduced to create kernel matrix which is used to replace the hidden layer's output matrix. Finally, the least square is applied to calculate the model's output weight. In order to verify the predictive capability of the GA-KELM model, the R-square factor(R^2), Root-meansquare Errors of Calibration(RMSEC), Root-mean-square Errors of Prediction(RMSEP) of GAKELM model are compared with the traditional PLS algorithm, respectively. The results confirm that GA-KELM can reduce the interference from matrix effect and self-absorption effect and is suitable for multi-elements calibration of LIBS.

Portable fiber-optic laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy system for the quantitative analysis of minor elements in steel

In this paper, we developed a portable laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS) using an optical fiber to deliver laser energy and used it to quantitatively analyze minor elements in steel.The R^2 factors of calibration curves of elements Mn, Ti, V, and Cr in pig iron were 0.9965,0.9983, 0.9963, and 0.991, respectively, and their root mean square errors of cross-validation were 0.0501, 0.0054, 0.0205, and 0.0245 wt%, respectively. Six test samples were used for the validation of the performance of the calibration curves established by the portable LIBS. The average relative errors of elements Mn, Ti, V, and Cr were 2.5%, 11.7%, 13.0%, and 5.6%,respectively. These results were comparable with most results reported in traditional LIBS in steel or other matrices. However, the portable LIBS is flexible, compact, and robust, providing a promising prospect in industrial application.

Effects of circular beam oscillation technique on formability and solidification behaviour of selective laser melted Inconel 718:From single tracks to cuboid samples

The inherent drawbacks of selective laser melting technique including serious micro-pore and element microsegregation problems destroy the mechanical property of the component.To overcome this problem,a new approach,circular beam oscillation,was successfully applied in the SLMed Inconel 718 samples including single tracks,thin walls and cuboid samples.On one hand,circular beam oscillation reduces the micro-pores in molten pools and cuboid samples,increasing the relative density of the cuboid sample to 99.95%.On the other hand,circular beam oscillation suppresses the element microsegregation,reducing the formation of Laves phases in SLMed Inconel 718 samples.Moreover,circular beam oscillation enhances the<001>texture of thin walls and the<101>texture of cuboid samples.The improvement of formability and microstructure of the SLMed samples with oscillation is closely related to cooling rate,thermal gradient and stirring effect during the solidification process.Therefore,circular beam oscillation shows the possibility to overcome the key bottlenecks of the traditional SLM technology and to realize a further industrial application of SLM technology.

Effect of rotation angle on surface morphology, microstructure, and mechanical properties of Inconel 718 alloy fabricated by high power laser powder bed fusion

Rotation angle of the laser scan direction between two adjacent layers is a key controlling parameter during the high-power (≥ 1 kW) laser powder bed fusion (HP-LPBF) process. This study investigates the influences of rotation angles (θ = 0°, 45°, 90°, 105°) on the surface morphology, microstructure, and mechanical properties of Inconel 718 (IN718) alloy produced by HP-LPBF. Results show that adopting low rotation angles (e.g., 0° and 45°) is prone to relatively poor surface finish and lack-of-fusion defects, whereas adopting high rotation angles (e.g., 90° and 105°) induces smaller surface roughness and better relative density. Each case reveals a noticeable edge effect but the maximal heights witness a downward trend with the increase of rotation angle. There are some minor differences in the primary dendrite arm spacing and grain morphology by varying the rotation angles. Moreover, the tensile property is slightly enhanced as the rotation angle increases. The present work suggests that high rotation angles like 90° and 105° would probably be more favorable for the 1 kW HP-LPBF process than rotation angles with relatively low values.