Laser cutting of Carbon Fiber Composite materials

Carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites are materials widely used for many applications due to its high strength, specific stiffness and inherent low density. CFRP composites are easily tailored to a particular application, which made them very attractive for structural applications, especially for aeronautics.The potential of such composites to be cut by a high quality CO2 laser was investigated in this work. A 3.5 kW CO2 slab laser was used to cut CFRP plates with a thickness of 3 mm. The influence on the cut quality of different processing parameters such as pulse frequency, pulse energy, duty cycle, type and pressure of the assist gas were studied. The quality of the cuts was evaluated in terms of kerf width, perpendicularity of cut kerf, delaminating degree, and extension of the heat affected zone (HAZ). The process was optimized and selected processing parameters values were used to obtain good quality cuts.