Effects of Beam Size and Pulse Duration on the Laser Drilling Process

A two-dimensional axisymmetric transient laser drilling model is used to analyze the effects of laser beam diameter and laser pulse duration on the laser drilling process. The model includes conduction and convection heat transfer, melting, solidification and vaporization, as well as material removal resulting from the vaporization and melt ejection. The validated model is applied to study the effects of laser beam size and pulse duration on the geometry of the drilled hole. It is found that the ablation effect decrease with the increasing beam diameter due to the effect of increased vaporization rate, and deeper hole is observed for the larger pulse width due to the higher thermal ablation efficiency.