Surface Treatment Regarding Coloring of Stainless Steel Using YVO₄ Laser

Consideration of Environmental Factor, Sensitive Color and Life Regarding Coloring

Abstract

Recently, stainless steel and titanium are mainly used as a structure material. And some surface treatments regarding coloring for these metals are used for producing high quality industrial product. In privious study, we have proposed that coloring for stainless steel and titanium using YVO₄ laser became possible, and desired colors could be made by the inverse analysis using neural network. In this paper, relationship between interference color of stainless steel and thickness of oxide film was made clear. Working conditions were listed on the database so that the neural network was not used. The influences of various environmental conditions, such as room temperature and humidity, were investigated to achieve the micro-fabrication of coloring. Then, coloring accuracy, including the sensitive colors, was evaluated. In addition, wear and atmospheric corrosion resistance were investigated. It is concluded from the results that (1) Room temperature and humidity affected the accuracy of coloring, (2) Desired color was obtained by using the working conditions on database, (3) Wear resistance is sperior, however, laser-treated area was eroded.