A study on laser assisted acute angle milling strategies and preheating distance

Laser assisted machining (LAM) has emerged as one of the technologies that can be effectively employed to machine difficult-to-cut materials such as nickel alloy, ceramics and titanium that are increasingly used in the medical instruments, automobiles and aerospace industries. LAM has been widely studied, however most of those studies were basic research on turning or milling with a simple tool path. To machine complex shaped products in three dimensions further research on laser-assisted milling (LAMill) is required. In this study, laser assisted acute angle milling was proposed as a stepping stone for machining complex shapes. When acute angle machining was performed with LAMill, two factors affecting machining characteristics were identified. These factors were the preheating distance (d(P)) and distance between the laser beam focus and center of the cutting tool (d(L)). Prior to experimental verification, the proper depth of cut (DOC) and d(P) were determined by transient thermal analysis using the software ANSYS. Experiments were carried out using the same machining conditions for material removal rate (MRR) in order to confirm the effect of d(P) and d(L) on the machining characteristics. Experimental results showed that d(P) affects cutting force and d(L) affects tool wear. The range of d(P) and minimum d(L) needed to improving machinability during laser assisted acute angle milling were experimentally verified. Based on these results, the minimum acute angle that can be machined using LAMill was also derived.