Femtosecond Laser Drilling of Cylindrical Holes for Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) Composites

Ultrafast laser drilling has been proven to effectively reduce the heat-affected zone (HAZ) of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites. However, previous research mainly focused on the effects of picosecond laser parameters on CFRP drilling. Compared with a picosecond laser, a femtosecond laser can achieve higher quality CFRP drilling due to its smaller pulse width, but there are few studies on the effects of femtosecond laser parameters on CFRP drilling. Moreover, the cross-sectional taper of CFRP produced by laser drilling is very large. This paper introduces the use of the femtosecond laser to drill cylindrical holes in CFRP. The effect of laser power, rotational speed of the laser, and number of spiral passes on HAZ and ablation depth in circular laser drilling and spiral laser drilling mode was studied, respectively. It also analyzed the forming process of the drilling depth in the spiral drilling mode and studied the influence of laser energy and drilling feed depth on the holes’ diameters and the taper. The experimental results show that the cylindrical hole of CFRP with a depth-to-diameter ratio of about 3:1 (taper < 0.32°, HAZ < 10 μm) was obtained by using femtosecond laser and a spiral drilling apparatus.