Research progress of laser drilling technology for carbon fiber reinforced composites

Due to its excellent thermal physical properties such as good fatigue resistance, high specific strength and good heat resistance, carbon fiber reinforced plastic composites (CFRP) have been widely used in rail transportation, aerospace, aircraft, etc. industries. As the main load-bearing parts, a large number of assembly holes need to be machined for the mechanical connection between CFRP plates. However, as a hard-to-machining material with high hardness and anisotropy, traditional mechanical drilling has many disadvantages, such as many drilling procedures, serious tool wear and so on. Compared with the traditional mechanical drilling process, the laser can machine any hardness materials, and laser drilling shows the advantages such as no tool wear, good economy and easy to realize automatic control. First, this paper summarized the laser drilling technology of CFRP plates, and the common processes of laser drilling CFRP were emphatically analyzed. Then, the research status of defects and their suppression in CFRP laser drilling was analyzed. Subsequently, the influences of laser processing parameters on CFRP processing quality and efficiency were discussed. Aiming to reveal the material removal mechanism of laser drilling CFRP, the numerical simulation and dynamic process observation based on high-speed camera were emphatically analyzed. Finally, the development trends of CFRP laser drilling technology were forecasted.