Water-Jet-Guided Laser

An experimental investigation has been done on the CO2 laser in order to study the feasibility of applying this laser to the water-jet-guided laser cutting technique. The characteristics such as water jet quality, reduction of heat affected zone, laser beam divergence, total internal reflection of light in water jet, and limitations in using the CO2 laser in the laser micro-jet cutting technique are studied computationally and experimentally. The chamber is designed using CATIA, analyzed with the ANSYS and fabricated by the CNC machining with employing AA6061. The value of 50 mm is found to be reliable upper limit for cutting distance. The 500W power and 10.6µm wavelength for CO2 laser are not suitable for coupling with water jet because of high heat absorption of water. The couplings of the laser light and the water jet have been achieved experimentally. Heat absorption of water, the divergence of the laser beam, and some of the laser characteristics have been recognized as the main limitations of this technique. The study is much relevant to cutting industry and precision manufacturing, where it's necessary to get fine and precise cutting surface with minimum heat damage.