Simulation study on thermal effect of long pulse laser interaction with CFRP material

Abstract

Laser machining is one of most widely used technologies nowadays and becoming a hot industry as well. At the same time, many kinds of carbon fiber material have been used in different area, such as sports products, transportation, microelectronic industry and so on. Moreover, there is lack of the combination research on the laser interaction with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) material with simulation method. In this paper, the temperature status of long pulse laser interaction with CFRP will be simulated and discussed. Firstly, a laser thermal damage model has been built considering the heat conduction theory and thermal-elasto-plastic theory. Then using COMSOL Multiphysics software to build the geometric model and to simulate the mathematic results. Secondly, the functions of long pulse laser interaction with CFRP has been introduced. Material surface temperature increased by time during the laser irradiating time and the increasing speed is faster when the laser fluence is higher. Furthermore, the peak temperature of the center of material surface is increasing by enhanced the laser fluence when the pulse length is a constant value. In this condition, both the ablation depth and the Heat Affected Zone(HAZ) is larger when increased laser fluence. When keep the laser fluence as a constant value, the laser with shorter pulse length is more easier to make the CFRP to the vaporization material. Meanwhile, the HAZ is becoming larger when the pulse length is longer, and the thermal effect depth is as the same trend as the HAZ. As a result, when long pulse laser interaction with CFRP material, the thermal effect is the significant value to analysis the process, which is mostly effect by laser fluence and pulse length. For laser machining in different industries, the laser parameter choose should be different. The shorter pulse length laser is suitable for the laser machining which requires high accuracy, and the longer one is better for the deeper or larger ablation holes.