Research on polishing process of aluminum alloy curved surface by nanosecond laser beam coupling

Abstract

The coupled nanosecond laser processing system was used for processing 6061 aluminum alloy in this paper. At first, we explored the relationship between laser processing parameters, such as laser power, laser repetition frequency, as well as scanning speed, and the processed surface quality for 6061 aluminum alloy plate sample. The optimal laser parameters were determined by the experiment of the flat plate sample processing, and then the paths of laser processing were designed and planned on the aluminum alloy with curved surface to explore the influence of curvature on the surface quality. The results show that the new processing technology of coupled nanosecond laser polishing could obtain good surface quality. The optimal laser processing parameters are average laser power of 5W, scanning speed of 500mm/min, and repetition frequency of 10kHz, which could reduce the surface roughness by 43%. In addition, the surface quality of the aluminum alloy is closer to the original surface as the curvature increased. And the convex surface has a lower surface roughness than the concave surface because the spot shape is different at different curvature positions. The coupled laser polishing process provides theoretical and technological support for the high-quality machining of 6061 aluminum alloy in this study.