As part of the BMBF-project PRECISE, the IFSW is working on laser based repair and aftercare of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP). To protect the employee as well as the machine an ideal suction is needed. For the design of this suction, on the one hand, knowledge about the components of the process emissions is necessary. On the other hand their properties such as the speed must be known. During drilling and cutting of CFRP components using a cw laser, compression shocks could be detected with the aid of high-speed camera. Compression shocks can be used to calculate the flow speed of the ablation vapors close to the processing zone. For an average laser power of 3.5 kW, a flow speed of about 3300 m/s +/- 600 m/s could be calculated during drilling.
The results have been published in Appl. Phys. A 123(3):156 (2017), (DOI 10.1007/s00339-017-0781-0).
Contact: Sebastian Faas, Christian Freitag and Dr. Rudolf Weber
