Product Code: ICA10_1502

Laser-Assisted Machining: Its Potential and Future
Authors:
Yung Shin, Center of Laser-based Manufacturing School of Mechanical Engineering Purdue University; - USA
Presented at ICALEO 2010

Laser-assisted machining has been developed over the last fifteen years at Purdue University. This paper presents various case studies on applications of laser-assisted machining and scientific tools developed to design laser-assisted machining processes. LAM has been successfully applied to various materials including ceramics, high temperature alloys, stainless steel, compacted graphite iron as well as metal matrix composites. LAM has shown to provide various benefits including reduced cutting force, improved surface finish, higher material removal rate and longer tool life. It also describes the numerical thermo-mechanical models specifically developed for LAM, which provide the means of designing optimal operating conditions to precisely control temperature field and thus help avoid any adverse thermal damage. Various experimental results are shown to illustrate the benefits of LAM in terms of machinability improvement and subsurface integrity such as microstructure and residual stresses compared with conventional machining. Finally, the paper presents future potential applications of LAM and the issues pertaining to requisite scientific basis to realize successful industrial implementation.