Numerical Simulation about Effect of Laser Ablation on Surface of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic During Laser Processing

Abstract

Although carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) is widely used for several applications, the heat affected zone (HAZ) by laser processing decreases the cutting quality. We performed experiments and discussed both matrix evaporation zone (MEZ) and resin alteration zone (RAZ) in the previous study. In this paper, we performed numerical simulation of CFRP’s laser processing and simulated laser ablation as high temperature and high pressure of compressive gas. We calculated the heat flux to the material surface from numerical simulation results and propose a model that explains how the MEZ and RAZ are created. In this model, RAZ is mainly created when the depth of the processed hole is shallow and MEZ is mainly created after the depth is increased.