Material modification of reinforced glass fibers using pulsed laser radiation

In this paper, laser processing of glass fiber reinforced thermoplastics is investigated with different laser sources. The aim of the study is to determine process windows in which uniform selective ablation of polymer matrix and homogenous ablation of matrix and fiber occurs. Laser sources with different wavelengths (10600 nm, 1064 nm and 355 nm) and pulse durations in ìs and ns regime are compared on their ablation behavior of natural and black colored glass fiber reinforced polypropylene. Further the effect of laser processing on the fiber strength is investigated for different parameter settings where selective ablation of polymer matrix was achieved.