Experimental Study of Low-Pressure Water Jet Assisted Laser Processing of Al₂O₃ Ceramic

Abstract

Recast layer, micro cracks and thermal deformation limited the improvement of the surface quality of laser processing in precision machining of hard and brittle material. This paper presents a new method which combines low-pressure water jet with laser processing. A comprehensive study on the influence of laser processing parameters on surface quality of an Al2O3 ceramic sheet is presented. The experiment was conducted using ND: YAG laser machine and low-pressure water jet was used as assist. The surface quality of normal laser processing and low-pressure water jet assisted laser processing was comparative analyzed using a 3-D microscopy. Experiment proves that the composite processing of low-pressure water jet assisted laser processing can obtain good surface quality, slight moltenslag and thermal deformation, compared with the normal laser processing.