Laser hardening plant for steel workpieces, has three adjacent, independent cooling nozzles to allow increased laser penetration depth and trace width without overheating

摘要

In a laser hardening plant for steel workpieces (10), with a cooler for the region (20) to be hardened (or adjacent regions) before, during or after the laser treatment, the cooler comprises first, second and third nozzles (14, 16, 18) supplying first, second and third cooling media onto the region immediately adjacent to the region to be hardened, the region being laser-treated and the region already heated by the laser respectively. An independent claim is included for a corresponding laser hardening method for steel workpieces, in which cooling media from three nozzles are applied to the respective regions as above.