An Improved Scanning Strategy for Long Pulsed Laser Drilling of Carbon Fiber Textiles

Laser drilling of carbon fiber based textiles by means of long pulsed laser radiation and dynamic scanning optics offer great potential to increase the materialographical quality of drilling holes for force transmission elements. Compared to laser cutting or drilling of consolidated CFRP parts, thermally induced defects of the matrix do not occur when drilling textile preforms. By utilizing a scanner-guided laser drilling process for long pulsed fiber laser radiation with high pulse energy, the heat affected zone can be significantly large if heat accumulation effects are not taken into account. A pulse distribution strategy in order to avoid heat accumulation and to increase the materialographical quality while maintaining productivity is being presented and evaluated in this work.