Carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRP) offer outstanding mechanical properties at extraordinary low weight. They are going to become a preferred material for high performance structural elements in airplanes, high-dynamic machines and cars. The main challenges for conventional machining are the abrasive character of CFRP, leading to strong tool wear, a strong environmental impact caused by noise and dust as well as delamination of the bulk material and damage of the epoxy matrix due to mechanical load. Laser machining of CFRP provides a contact free and therewith wear-free flexible process. At CFRP laser processing however, the strong anisotropic thermo-physical properties lead to a thermal load of temperature sensitive epoxy resulting from the very high evaporation temperature required for carbon.
This paper studies the effect of process strategies and process parameters on the heat affected zone (HAZ) producing through-holes with few millimeters in diameter in d ≥ 2 mm CFRP using picosecond laser pulses (τH=10 ps) at the wavelength of 532 nm. The results were statistically evaluated by means of linear regression analysis.