Laser Assisted Machining of Difficult to Cut Materials: Research Opportunities and Future Directions - A Comprehensive Review

Abstract

High strength alloys such as nickel and titanium and advanced engineering materials such as ceramics, composites are being developed and widely used in aerospace, automotive, medical and nuclear industries due its inherent physical-mechanical properties. However conversion these new materials into engineering products are always associated with machining. The machinability characteristics such as higher cutting force, higher cutting temperature, poor surface integrity and shorter tool life associated with these materials posing many challenges to the researchers, and hence considered as difficult to cut materials. Conventional methods of machining these materials are found to be uneconomical. In recent days, many attempts have been made to improve the machinability of these materials more effectively via use of external energy assisted machining. Among the various external energy assisted machining methods, laser assisted machining (LAM) has received the attention of researchers in the metal cutting domain and a few research was carried during the recent years. This paper is aimed to review and summarize the potential use of LAM for difficult to cut materials, current progress, benefits and challenges in laser assisted machining. In addition an optimization frame work to study the effect of laser parameters and machining process parameters on machinability performance is not reported which is applicable to industrial processes It is concluded that further experimental modeling and empirical techniques are required to create a predictive based models that gives good agreement with reliable experiments, while explaining the effects of many parameters, for machining of these difficult-to-cut materials..

A comparison of laser beam machining of micro-channels under dry and wet mediums

“…Hence, such materials are considered as difficult-to-cut materials. Although the conventional machining methods are employed to deal with these difficult-to-machine materials especially Inconel 718 [25][26][27][28][29]30], in general, the conventional machining processes are found to be uneconomical [31]. Nickel-based superalloys are grouped into this class of difficult-to-machine materials.…”

Smooth particle hydrodynamics study of surface defect machining for diamond turning of silicon

“…Stress, strain and other internal state variables are evaluated to characterise the material behaviour under loading and unloading conditions. The hydrostatic pressure was measured for different DP parameters β and Ψ values in all the indentation tests, and the values of hydrostatic pressure were found to occur in the range of (8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Since this range lies in the structural transformation zone of silicon, plastic deformation would be the possible outcome leading to phase transformation in highpressure range with little brittle fracture at low pressures.…”

“…Laser-assisted machining CO 2 laser, Nd/YAG [17] Tool steel/CBN [18], titanium [19], silicon/ diamond [20] , results in extreme deformation [23].…”

Analysis of vibrations during turning laser cladded sintered carbides

“…Doskonalenie przebiegu procesów obróbki wiórowej ma na celu zwiększenie ich efektywności. Jednym z rozwią-zań, które umożliwią poprawę produktywności i skrawalności materiałów powszechnie uważanych za trudno skrawalne, jest obróbka ze wspomaganiem laserowym [5,6]. Dokładność wymiarów uzyskiwanych po obróbce zależy od zjawisk dynamicznych, które są wynikiem wzajemnego siłowego oddziaływania narzędzia skrawającego i przedmiotu obrabianego [2].…”

“…Doskonalenie przebiegu procesów obróbki wiórowej ma na celu zwiększenie ich efektywności. Jednym z rozwią-zań, które umożliwią poprawę produktywności i skrawalności materiałów powszechnie uważanych za trudno skrawalne, jest obróbka ze wspomaganiem laserowym [5,6].…”