Investigation on geometric precision and surface quality of microholes machined by ultrafast laser

Abstract The geometric precision and surface quality of film cooling holes has significant influence on the cooling efficiency and fatigue life of turbine blades. In this paper, the investigation about fabrication process of film cooling holes on the single crystal superalloy DD6 plate specimen by ultrafast laser is carried out. By comparing three different processing paths, minimum roughness of hole wall could be obtained by concentric circular scanning, which was used in the followed-up experiment. The influence of process parameters on the geometric precision and surface quality of microholes was analyzed, and the physical mechanism was examined. The results show that among several process parameters, focus position has the most significant influence on the microholes geometric precision and surface quality, and that the divergent beam (where the focal plane is above the machined surface) can lead to smaller taper, roundness, and surface roughness. In addition, besides a layer of solidified debris adheres to the inner wall at the hole entrance, the microholes machined by ultrafast lasers have no other defects such as a recast layer, microcrack or heat affected zone.