Characteristics investigation of high power CO2 laser micro-grooving of steel samples

The paper describes experimental results of high power laser micro-grooving characteristics of steel samples. An elliptically focused laser beam, where longer axis coincides with the traveling direction, was applied to lengthen the molten time to improve the material removal rate. As a result, depth of the groove increased about 70% compared to that with a circularly focused laser beam. Using a 0.2mm*0.1mm focused beam, 0.1mm width and 0.020mm depth groove was achieved at the condition of 14m/sec processing speed with 2kW cw-CO2 laser. On the other hand, 0.1mm diameter circularly focused beam made only 0.012mm depth at the same speed. We also analyzed this effect using a three-dimensional heat conduction model.These results should be useful for many fields of laser micro machining such as the oil pit formation of plain bearing.The paper describes experimental results of high power laser micro-grooving characteristics of steel samples. An elliptically focused laser beam, where longer axis coincides with the traveling direction, was applied to lengthen the molten time to improve the material removal rate. As a result, depth of the groove increased about 70% compared to that with a circularly focused laser beam. Using a 0.2mm*0.1mm focused beam, 0.1mm width and 0.020mm depth groove was achieved at the condition of 14m/sec processing speed with 2kW cw-CO2 laser. On the other hand, 0.1mm diameter circularly focused beam made only 0.012mm depth at the same speed. We also analyzed this effect using a three-dimensional heat conduction model.These results should be useful for many fields of laser micro machining such as the oil pit formation of plain bearing.