Laser drilling
Precision through and through
Laser drilling is outstandingly well suited to drilling large numbers of holes at very high speed and with a variety of different characteristics.
Daily Business:
Laser drilling is a very flexible process that can be used for drilling laborious individual holes or drilling thousands of holes in a very quick time. Depending on the type of laser, the material and the material thickness, micro-holes can be drilled from 10 µm.
The applications for which we mostly manufacture laser-drilled products are
- Filters and filter tubes for the foodstuffs industry,
- jet engine blades for aerospace and
- ceramic-coated components for the energy sector.
Various different drilling techniques:
Laser drilling can be performed using various different drilling techniques. We distinguish between
- percussion drilling,
- trepanning and
- helical drilling
Percussion drilling:
Percussion drilling is performed with laser pulses which create a hole in the workpiece.
Trepanning:
Trepanning can be performed when the laser beam diameter is significantly smaller than the hole diameter. In trepanning, rotation of an optical head or rotation of the workpiece allows multiple laser pulses to be delivered so that they overlap. With this method, holes of any size can be produced. Trepanning is also referred to as "cutting out" a hole.
Helical drilling:
In contrast to both percussion drilling and trepanning, helical drilling does not immediately produce a hole. The laser is moved over the material within a circular area. The material evaporates layer by layer.
Field of application:
High-temperature materials such as Hastelloy, Nimonic, tungsten, molybdenum, all types of stainless steels and non-ferrous metals are particularly suitable for laser drilling. Thanks to the latest technologies we are also in the position to drill sapphire glass, mother-of-pearl, onyx, Ohara and ceramic materials to high precision.
The advantages to you:
- Very fine holes from Ø 0.01 mm
- Percussion drilling up to Ø 1.20 mm
- 100 and more holes can be drilled per second
- Holes can be drilled at angles up to 20° to the surface
- Material thicknesses up to approx. 12 mm can be drilled