Efficient production of design textures on large-format 3D mold tools

Abstract

Laser surface structuring is becoming increasingly important in the industry for tool and mold making. While structured surfaces contribute to minimizing friction in combustion engines or to increasing efficiency of light-emitting diode-based lighting systems, surface texturing is evolving a quality feature of products with regard to optical and haptic properties. Currently used manufacturing processes for tool texturing like photochemical etching are limited in precision and in flexibility. To establish a digital process chain and to increase the design flexibility, laser ablation with (ultra) short pulse laser radiation is becoming an increasingly important technology. In the research project “eVerest,” all necessary parts of a laser texture processing are integrated into the machine and operating concept, e.g., the virtual design of the product including unrolling and visualization of the textures. Finally, new process strategies and advanced machine and system technologies are developed.