Research on the Mechanism of Micro-Water Jet-Guided Laser Precision Drilling in Metal Sheet

Abstract

As the microporous structure has been widely used in the field of precision machining, at the same time, the requirements for the quality of microporous machining are continuously increasing. Water jet-guide laser processing technology (WJGL) has been gradually applied for its high machining precision. However, there are a few researches on the heat conduction process of WJGL processing metal materials. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the transient thermal effect of metal materials and the mechanism of material removal to improve the processing quality. In order to explore the heat conduction model of WJGL processing metal materials, this paper is based on the “element birth and death” technique in the finite element method, and the three-dimensional transient temperature field of four typical metal materials (titanium alloy, stainless steel, aluminum alloy, copper) and material removal model are established. Under this model, the removal mechanism of different metal materials and the influence of different process parameters on the temperature field distribution of the material are studied, and the influence of fixed-position drilling and helix drilling on the microporous morphology is compared. The results show that copper and aluminum alloys can obtain a larger depth-to-diameter ratio and a smaller hole taper. Titanium alloy and stainless steel have better hole roundness, lower hole edge temperature, and smaller thermal deformation. Hole roundness error and hole taper decrease with the increase of laser power. The roundness error of each material is reduced to within 10 μm when the laser power is 10 W, and the average hole taper is 8.73°.