Laser assisted machining

Menu :

• Laser principle
• Laser sources
• Applications
  • Cutting
  • Metallic welding
  • Plastic welding
  • Soldering
  • Brazing
  • Marking, engraving
  • Cleaning and surface preparation
  • Cladding
  • Surface alloying
  • Laser assisted machining
  • Laser machining

Now the use of high hardness materials is more and more common in industrial fields like aerospace or biomedical. Laser assisted machining is an innovative process for material shaping and finishing. This technique meets the needs of flexibility, speed and costs as regards the machining of these materials.

Principle :

When a material is heated (metal, ceramics) beyond a certain threshold (depending of its composition), its plasticity threshold decreases as well as its hardness. Laser assisted machining is based on this principle. Actually a material is machined with a traditional tool machine but with a located laser preheating before the cutting tool.

	Exemple de l'U.A.L. en tournage
faisceau laser		outil de coupe
	Laser assisted machining of ceramics.

Characteristics

Laser assisted machining offers many advantages in comparison with traditional machining processes :

• Speed : up to 10 times faster than abrasion for the machining of technical ceramics
• Flexibility : piece shape modification is made by programming the numerical command
• Surface state quality : the average Ra obtained on ceramics is 0.64 micrometer

Laser assisted machining of ceramics