Product Code: ICAL06_309

Drilling Routine for Estimating, Analyzing and Modeling of Laser Processing
Authors:
Devdas Shetty, University of Hartford; West Hartford CT USA
Ivana Milanovic, University of Hartford; West Hartford CT USA
Tom Eppes, University of Hartford; West Hartford CT USA
Jason Bornas, University of Hartford; West Hartford CT USA
Presented at ICALEO 2006

Nd:YAG laser percussion drilling is used extensively in the aerospace industry to produce cooling holes in turbine engine components. A variety of theoretical models have been developed to predict the outcome of the drilling process. Several models show good agreement with experimental results regarding hole geometry and metallurgical properties. However, the practical application of existing models is resource consuming and requires compilation of relevant parameters on a case by case basis as well as the development of software to accommodate the complexity of the models. This work presents an application model for use in laser hole drilling. DREAM (Drilling Routine for Estimating, Analyzing and Modeling) is a free-standing, MatLab-based design that provides a convenient and flexible way to predict a variety of drilling process outcomes and can be easily ported across various computing platforms. A graphical interface allows users to provide the drilling process settings and desired hole diameter and drill depth. A library of common aerospace alloys is embedded in the base application and additional materials can be imported from an external file. Key process outcomes such as drilling velocity, number of pulses required, time to drill and surface melt temperature are displayed.