Experimental analysis of the laser milling process parameters

The process of laser milling, or laser ablation as it is also known, was developed over the last decade. In conventional milling techniques material is physically removed by a milling tool. In laser milling the material is removed by a laser beam through the layer by layer ablation mechanism. The aim of this paper was to find out the parameters setting for manufacturing 3D structures with a good surface finishing through the laser milling technology using a laser marker machine equipped with a pulsed Nd:YVO4 laser having a wavelength of 1064 nm. The material investigated was an aluminium-magnesium alloy. The design of experiment methodology was used to evaluate the influence of the parameters involved in the process (laser power, frequency, overlapping, pulse width, scanning speed of the laser source, scanning modality used to fill the single manufactured layers) on the success of the ablation process in terms of depth of removed material (DP) and surface roughness (SR). (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.