High power laser cutting of fiber reinforced thermoplastic polymers with cw- and pulsed lasers

Glass fiber and carbon fiber reinforced polymers with thermoplastic matrix enable high volume production with short cycle times. Cutting and trimming operations in these production chains require the use of high average laser power for an efficient cutting speed, but employment of high laser power runs the risk to induce a wide heat affected zone (HAZ). This paper deals with investigations with cw and ns-pulsed CO2-laser radiation in the kilowatt range in single-pass and multiple-pass processes. Using multi-pass processing at high processing speeds of 100 m/min and above a reduced heat affected zone in the range of 100 μm to 200 μm could be achieved by the ns-pulsed radiation. With cw radiation at the same average power of 1 kW however, the HAZ was 300-400 μm. Also employing ns-pulses in the kW-range average power leads to heat accumulation in the material. Small HAZ were obtained with sufficient break times between subsequent passes.