Chamfering of ferrous materials with fiber laser

Abstract

The generation of burrs is unavoidable in most cases of mechanical machining. Leaving the burrs on the workpieces may cause various problems, thus the deburring process is necessary. Deburring process requires exclusive tools, and the tools are difficult to apply the workpieces with complicated shape. Laser machining is noncontact process thus it does not cause the deformation of workpiece and tool wear. Especially, fiber laser beam can be transmitted by flexible optical fibers so that it is easy to handle. The purpose of this study is to clarify the processing condition for achieving desired chamfering width with fiber laser. A series of experiments were performed by providing fiber laser beam to ferrous block’s right angle edge. In the experiments, the assist gas direction, the laser power, the processing speed, and the beam diameter were defined as processing parameters. Experimental results confirmed that defocused fiber laser beam can apply to chamfering ferrous materials. It also became clear that processing time can be shorten by processing fiber laser chamfering with higher laser power and higher scan speed. In addition, the results confirmed that the chamfering width is controlled by altering processing parameters as the input energy per unit time and unit volume are kept constant. Furthermore, the burrs on right angle edge can be removed by fiber laser, and the shape of deburred edge becomes rounded.