By: Christian Freitag1,2, Margit Wiedenmann1, Jan-Philipp Negel1, André Loescher1, Volkher Onuseit1, Rudolf Weber1, Marwan Abdou Ahmed1, Thomas Graf1 In order to process Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) with a satisfying productivity, average laser powers >1 kW are necessary. Usually high average laser powers are achieved using continuous wave (cw) laser systems but the appearance of thermal damage ranging […]
Laser Editorials
Drilling of Cooling Holes by Using High-Power Ultrashort Pulsed Laser Radiation
By Hermann Uchtmann One of the main applications for laser drilling is the manufacturing of cooling holes with diameters of e.g., 500 µm in turbine components such as turbine blades and vanes or combustion chambers. Nowadays, these cooling holes are drilled by using flash lamp pumped Nd:YAG laser radiation and partially by using QCW fiber laser […]
Laser Texturing to Generate High-Friction Surfaces
By Andrew Dunn Lasers have been used for many years to transform surface properties, including both texture and hardness, for a wide range of applications. For example, the ability to create tailored texture and hardness properties means that the frictional properties of a surface can be modified. Together with colleagues at Heriot-Watt, SPI Lasers and […]
DOE Special Operations Report on Laser Safety in Retrospect
By Jamie J. King Due to a rash of serious laser accidents from 2001 to 2005, including six eye injuries, the Department of Energy (DOE) released a Special Operations Report (SOR) in February of 2005. A root cause analysis revealed that there were four primary causes for the accidents. They were: inadequate training, inadequate Laser […]
LIA Spreads the Word on Laser Safety in Dallas
By Andrew Morrison As LIA’s sales and client representative, I travel to a lot of conferences to connect with our partners and learn about new companies. My latest trip took me to Dallas for the Safety 2015 conference by the American Society of Safety Engineers. Almost all the interest at our booth regarded our laser […]