Laser dressing of metal bonded diamond blades for cutting of hard brittle materials

Abstract

In this study, the authors investigate the laser dressing of metal bonded diamond blades by means of laser pulses with different pulse durations and wavelengths. Conventional dressing suffers from excessive blade wear, whereas laser dressing enables precise removal of the bonding metal to generate the required chip space of protruding diamond grains. The challenge for processing this composite material is to find appropriate level of ablation for the bonding metal without damaging the diamond grains through cracking or graphitization. For worn out blades, the influence of pulse duration and wavelength on laser dressed surface topography and bonding metal removal is studied. The experiments are performed with 532 and 1064 nm laser radiation with pulse durations from 12 ps to 20 ns. The blade surface topography and bonding metal removal of the dressed blades are measured with a confocal microscope, where the protruding diamond grains are identified by scanning electron microscope examinations. The dressing ...