ABSTRACT
In the world of micro-manufacturing, machining micron-size features with much accuracy, excellent quality, and high precision within less time is a challenge that is being successfully faced by laser technology. Nanosecond micromachining assisted by laser faces a drawback in the form of HAZ on the micro-machined material, which becomes a hindrance in achieving good precision and accuracy, which is an adequate requirement of micro-machined materials. The objective of this research is to determine the effect of the input parameters such as laser beam temperature, air pressure, and laser beam pulse width on the thermal properties and structural properties of the micro-grooved on alumina ceramic using ANSYS. The thermal properties include spatial distribution of temperature and generation of heat flux during the laser microgrooving process. The structural properties include the generation of normal stress, stress intensity, equivalent stress, strain, and deformation that the material undergoes during the microgrooving process. Also, an attempt has been made to determine whether these responses are in any way contributing to the deviation of groove width and depth during the microgrooving operation. In different parametric settings, the developed different thermal models showed certain changes in the structural properties, 112which has affected greatly the dimensional deviations of the microgroove. The analysis shows that the heat-affected zone (HAZ) can increase with an increase in the laser beam temperature, and it also increases with increasing pulse width. However, the air pressures employed in this analysis have no effect on the generated heat flux or on the temperature distribution but have little effect on the structural properties of the micro-machined material. The proposed model will be useful in the field of laser microgrooving to optimize pre-cited machining parameters.
