Waterjet guided laser processing demonstrates effective reduction of the heat-affected zone and defects, including micro-cracks, recast layers, and burrs compared with long-pulse laser processing. Moreover, it surpasses ultrashort pulse laser processing in terms of processing efficiency. In this study, we meticulously investigated the impact of various parameters, namely feed speed, cutting time, parallel paths distance, and the number of parallel paths, on the cutting efficiency and quality of 1mm thick TA1 titanium plates. Through meticulous analysis using a laser confocal microscope, we evaluated both the upper surface morphology and three-dimensional characteristics of the cuts. The results are as follows: (1) The cutting efficiency gradually declines with increasing cutting speed and reaches its peak at a cutting speed of 1 mm/s and a material removal rate of 12.14 m/s. (2) In the case of single path cutting, the processing efficiency gradually diminishes with time, and the depth ended up at 900μm. (3) The cutting efficiency experiences an initial increase followed by a subsequent decrease with the augmentation of the distance between parallel paths and the number of parallel paths. (4) By adopting a feed speed of 1 mm/s, parallel paths distance of 50μm, and employing 5 parallel paths, we achieved a remarkable 183% increase in the material removal rate in cutting titanium compared with before the optimization, moreover, the cutting time is reduced by 65%. The average surface roughness before and after optimization are 2.93μm and 2.94μm respectively. Our research provides a theoretical basis for the study of waterjet guided laser cutting of TA1 titanium.
Water jet-guided laser technology is an efficient processing technology that offers the advantages of a small heat-affected zone and strong depth capability when processing a variety of difficult-to-process materials. However, the surface of the laminar water column can form irregular disturbances due to nozzle damage and other factors, ultimately leading to an uneven distribution of laser light intensity, causing a loss of laser power. In this paper, the relationship between the quality, morphology and coupling alignment errors of the water column on the optical transmission efficiency of water-guided lasers is investigated in depth with ray tracing method. Besides, the water column surface variable-angle prismatic disturbance model is established, considering the characteristics of the real water column to research the impact of the real situation relationship. The results show that the loss of laser energy is more severe as the complexity of the surface morphology of the water column increases. In addition, laser coupling alignment errors are studied. The results show that a circular distribution is formed in the water column when the alignment deviation occurs. Finally, the reasons affecting the laminar flow conditions are analyzed to provide theoretical support for efficient laminar coupled light transmission.
Conventional laser processing of metals will form serious heat affected zone, micro cracks, burrs and recast layer, resulting in rough machined surface and serious slag accumulation. As a new type of laser-waterjet composite processing method, waterjet guided laser can reduce or even eliminate heat affected zone, thermal crack, recast layer and burr. It has the advantages of high surface quality, strong depth ability and large depth-to-diameter ratio structure. Nickel-based single crystal superalloy is widely used in advanced aero-engine turbine blades for their excellent overall performance. With waterjet guided laser processing technology, this paper study the influence of process parameters on the grooving morphology and quality of DD6 nickel-based single crystal superalloy. A multi-factor study on the influence of laser power, laser repetition frequency, waterjet velocity and feeding speed on grooving was carried out with a self-developed waterjet guided laser processing device. The depth-to-width ratio and sidewall taper of the machined groove were measured and analyzed by using a three-dimensional confocal laser scanning microscope. The experimental results show that the grooves taper can be decreased with reducing the laser repetition frequency and increasing the laser power. The grooves large depth processing is improved by reducing the feeding speed, increasing the laser power, reducing the laser repetition frequency and increasing the waterjet velocity. The cutting experiment of 1 mm DD6 nickel-based single crystal superalloy was achieved with better processing process parameters, and it was found that the upper and lower surface roughness of the cutting surface was inconsistent, providing a theoretical basis for the study of high quality processing of nickel-based single-crystal superalloy by waterjet guided laser.
As a novel composite processing technology, water guided laser has the advantages of small heat affected zone, good surface quality of the cut surface, strong processing depth capability and small taper compared with the traditional dry laser processing technology. In this paper, the infrared water guided laser processing technology is used to process 7075 aluminum alloy, which has high strength, high toughness and corrosion resistance and is widely used in the fields of aerospace, mechanical equipment. The processing parameters of the infrared water guided laser including the effect of 7075 aluminum alloy on the cutting depth, kerf width and surface quality at different feed speed, number of cutting times and peak power are analyzed to extend the processing method of 7075 aluminum alloy. The distance-power curve was also derived based on the fact that the further the power meter was from the nozzle, the lower the power measured within the water column. The experimental results show that the faster the 7075 aluminum alloy feed speed is, the shallower the cutting depth and the smaller the kerf width is, while the higher the number of cuts and the higher the peak power are, both will result in large cutting depth and kerf width. Finally, high quality cutting through and punching of 3mm aluminum alloy plate is achieved, which provides the theoretical basis for the study to infrared water guided laser.
Water-guided laser is a processing technology that uses a high-pressure water jet to guide the laser to act on the processing surface to complete material removal, which has the advantages of large processing depth, small heat-affected zone and good processing quality. However, the coupling efficiency of the beam in the water jet affects the processing quality. The coupling efficiency was found to be affected by the laminar flow quality of the water jet, which has an irregular shape on the surface of the water column ejected from the nozzle. This paper investigates the factors affecting the beam propagation quality and provides an in-depth study of the laminar surface state affecting the laminar light transmission. The laser energy distribution in laminar flow in different surface morphology was simulated with ZEMAX optical simulation software. The influence law on the light transmission efficiency of water jet is obtained, the more complex the surface morphology of the water jet, the worse the light transfer efficiency and the more serious the power loss. Lastly, the reasons affecting the laminar flow condition are analyzed, theoretical support is provided for efficient laminar flow coupling light transmission by water-guided laser.
As a new type of micro machining technology, waterjet guided laser processing technology has the advantages of small thermal damage, strong depth ability and small taper effect compared with the traditional dry laser processing technology, and it has broad development and application prospects. 7050 aluminum alloy has been widely used in aerospace manufacturing because of its high strength, high toughness and excellent stress corrosion resistance. In this paper, 7075 aluminum alloy was processed by waterjet guided laser processing technology, and they were studied that the influence of waterjet speed and workpiece feed speed on cutting depth and surface quality. The results show that the cutting depth increases with the increase of waterjet speed in single cutting, and decreases with the increase of workpiece feed speed. By adjusting the process parameters, the surface quality of cutting surface and micro hole machining is better than the results of traditional dry laser processing. In conclusion, the influence of laser processing parameters on the processing of aluminum alloy is analyzed, and the processing method of 7075 aluminum alloy is expanded.
Under the condition of limited laser energy, it is of great significance to understand and effectively control the laser distribution in the laminar flow column to solve the problem of depth capability decline caused by the taper effect of the slit in the thick plate material waterjet guided laser processing. In this paper, the distribution of laser energy in the water column is analyzed by means of simulation and experiment. In the simulation analysis, using ZEMAX software, the energy distribution of axial position and radial position (diameter section) in water column is simulated and analyzed for the different focal length and nozzle diameter. In addition, the simulation results are verified by experiments. The results show that: the laser energy in the laminar water column still presents the characteristics of Gaussian like distribution, which will make the material remove very difficult at the edge of the water column due to the insufficient power density. This is easy to produce machining taper effect. Finally, the energy distribution conditions of high efficiency material removal by water guided laser are given. This study provides a theoretical and technical basis for further understanding the law of energy transmission and distribution of water column in water guided laser.
Water-guided laser processing technology can be used for precision machining of refractory materials such as superalloy and composite materials. Compared with traditional short-pulse laser processing, it has the advantages of less thermal damage, smaller taper and greater depth, cleaner surface and so on. However, the existing technologies have two key problems of low laser coupling power and poor process reliability, which seriously affect laser processing efficiency and workpiece processing quality. Based on this situation, a water-gas shrinkage-guided high-power laser processing (WSLP) technology is proposed innovatively in this paper. Firstly, the laminar shrinkage mechanism is analyzed. secondly, the characteristics of water-gas contraction and total reflection conducting laser are investigated by simulation. The results show that water-gas compressibility effect can make water-jet compressed to within 0.1mm; and some systematic disturbance does not affect the laser coupling efficiency because of the total reflection effect at the water-gas interface, which verifies the stability and reliability of the system. In addition, water-gas shrinkage coupling experiment and total reflection conducting laser experiment are completed. The experiment result shows that the laser coupling efficiency can reach up to 93%; The feasibility of the system processing is verified by the tests.
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