Laser drilling is the earliest practical laser processing technology and one of the main application areas of laser processing. With the rapid development of modern industry and science and technology, more and more materials with high hardness and high melting point are used, while the traditional processing methods can not meet some technological requirements. This type of machining task is difficult, sometimes impossible, with conventional machining methods, and laser drilling is not difficult to achieve.
The laser beam is highly concentrated in space and time, by focusing with a lens, the spot diameter can be reduced to the order of micrometers to obtain a laser power density of 105-1015 W/cm2. Such high power density can be performed by laser drilling in almost any material, and has the following significant advantages compared with other methods such as mechanical drilling.It has the following advantages:
(1) The laser drilling speed is fast, the efficiency is high, and the economic benefit is good;
(2) Laser drilling can obtain a large depth-diameter ratio;
(3) Laser drilling can be carried out on hard, brittle, soft and other materials;
(4) Laser drilling without tool loss;
(5)Laser drilling is suitable for a large number of high-density group hole processing;
(6)using a laser to machine small holes on the inclined surface of the difficult-to-machine material;
(7) Laser drilling has simple requirements for workpiece clamping, and it is easy to realize online connection and automation on the production line;
(8) Laser drilling is easy to punch holes in complex shapes, and can also be punched in a vacuum.
Since laser drilling uses a high-energy laser beam with a power density of 107-109 W/cm2 to instantaneously act on the material, the action time is only 0.3-0.5s, so the laser drilling speed is very fast.Combining high- performance lasers with high-precision machine tools and control systems, and program control through a microprocessor, high-efficiency drilling can be achieved. Laser drilling on different workpieces is 10 to 1000 times more efficient than spark drilling and mechanical drilling.
