Small hole structures are widely used in aerospace fields, but they are difficult to fabricate because of stringent quality requirements and the difficult-to-cut materials. In this paper, the shaped tube electrochemical and laser synchronous composite machining method are used to fabricate the small holes on the surface of titanium alloy with high quality and efficiency by taking advantage of the local thermal effect and fast removal rate of laser, and high surface quality of electrochemical machining. The relationship between the size of the entrance and exit of small holes and the machining process parameters was studied, and the influencing factors of the entrance and exit of small holes morphology were analyzed. After optimizing the machining process parameters, the through hole machining with a feed speed of 5mm/min was finally realized on the surface of the material with a thickness of 5mm. Overall, this work has shown that the combination of tubular electrode electrolysis and laser synchronous machining has high potential to improve the efficiency and quality of small hole machining, and this method can be further applied to deep small hole machining.
Machining micro-holes with high-power pulsed laser is very common, but due to the mechanism of laser processing, micro-cracks, recast layer and heat-affected zones in hole walls are difficult to avoid. Hybrid processing of laser beam machining with Electrochemical Machining (ECM) can effectively eliminate these defects and improve processing efficiency. This paper proposes to use a synchronized laser and electrochemical machining method. A metal tube electrode is used to guide and transmit the laser to the machining area to achieve high coaxial coupling of laser and electrochemical energy. An experimental system of laser beam machining with ECM is developed, and the surface quality of hole walls are studied on aluminum alloy and stainless-steel workpiece. The effects of ECM voltage and current on the rate of laser beam machining with ECM and the surface quality of hole walls (recast layer, micro-cracks, surface roughness, etc.) are analyzed. The experimental results show that the machining current increases with the increase of pulse voltage, the material removal rate increases, the micropore clearance increases, and the machining precision decreases. By adopting appropriate ECM parameters, the fast processing of micro-holes is realized, with smooth side wall, small taper, good entrance roundness, and the recast layer of the hole wall is fully removed.
This study presents the comparison of laser drilling of nickel based superalloy in air and vacuum environment. A 300W Nd:YAG laser was used to carry out the experimental study, pulse width and pulse peak power were studied of their influence on the hole quality and appearance, the experiments were respectively conducted in air and vacuum. It was found that the holes drilled in vacuum were much different to those drilled in air. Laser of shorter pulse width may drill the better holes in the air, but in the vacuum it was the pulse width around 1ms that produced holes of the best quality.
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