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Droplet Assisted Nanosecond Fibre Laser Micromachining

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A Correction to this article was published on 07 April 2022

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Abstract

Nickel alloys are widely used in the high-value manufacturing industry for the production of a variety of components like gas turbine engines. Machining of this type of materials requires a technique that will ensure material removal at a rate appropriate enough to yield the desired finished quality. The conventional nanosecond pulse laser micromachining (PLM) has significant limitations in terms of material removal rate and eventually finished quality. To that concern, droplet assisted fibre laser micromachining (DAFLM) is a new technique that is proposed as an alternative and therefore investigated in this research. The DAFLM technique involves injecting micro-droplets over the laser/material interaction zone to create a shock pressure that enhances the laser machining process. The results of the investigations on the DAFLM technique confirmed that its melt ejection mechanism is enhanced through the interaction between the droplets and laser irradiation, thus portraying the technique to be of higher efficiency with a 97% improvement in material removal rate and a 40% improvement in redeposited spatter reduction compared to the PLM technique.

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Funding

This study was supported by the engineering and physical sciences research council grant EP/L01968X/1.

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Author notes

  1. Zhehao Jiang

    Present address: BSH Electrical Appliances Co., Ltd, Nanjing, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Manufacturing Technology Centre, Coventry, UK

    Sundar Marimuthu

  2. Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

    Zhehao Jiang

  3. Department of Mechanical and Maintenance Engineering, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, Freetown, Sierra Leone

    Alhaji M. Kamara

Authors
  1. Sundar Marimuthu
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  2. Zhehao Jiang
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  3. Alhaji M. Kamara
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Contributions

Sundar Marimuthu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing—review & editing.

Zhehao Jiang: Methodology, Validation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing—original draft.

Alhaji M. Kamara: Formal analysis, Writing—review & editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sundar Marimuthu.

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The original vision of this article has been revised. Affiliation 3 is the present address.

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Marimuthu, S., Jiang, Z. & Kamara, A.M. Droplet Assisted Nanosecond Fibre Laser Micromachining. Lasers Manuf. Mater. Process. 9, 117–133 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40516-021-00162-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40516-021-00162-2

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