Product Code: ICA11_M1103

Laser Dressing of Metal Bonded Diamond Blades for Cutting of Hard Brittle Materials
Authors:
Philipp Von Witzendorff, Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V.; Hannover Germany
Anas Moalem, Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V.; Hannover Germany
Rainer Kling, Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V.; Hannover Germany
Presented at ICALEO 2011

In this study we investigate laser dressing of metal bonded diamond blades by means of laser pulses with different pulse durations and wavelengths. Conventional dressing suffers from excessive blade wear whereas laser dressing enables precise removal of the metal bond to generate the required chip space in terms of protruding diamond grains. The challenge for processing this material composite is a defined ablation of the metal bond without damaging the diamond grains such as cracking or graphitization. For worn out blades, the influence of pulse duration and wavelength on laser dressed surface topography and on metal bond removal is studied. The experiments are performed with 532 nm and 1064 nm laser radiation with pulse durations from 12 ps to 20 ns. The blade surface topography and metal bond removal of dressed blades is measured with confocal microscopy where the protruding diamond grains are identified by SEM examinations.
The dressing results show metal bond removal for available laser sources in the studied pulse duration range with increasing number of protruding diamond grains for shorter pulse durations. The results indicate a significant increase of blade life time for laser dressed blades compared to conventional dressing methods.