Laser facilitates percussion drilling and trepanning

GSI Group has introduced a new product to its line of JK™ industrial lasers. The JK604D laser was designed to address percussion drilling and trepanning within the Aerospace and Automotive industry sectors. Typical applications include drilling of cooling holes (effusion) in jet engines and gas turbine components, such as nozzle guide vanes, blades, and combustor liners.

The laser features a beam quality that is consistent over a wide operating envelope. It also offers quick, consistent warm-up and is appropriate for drill-on-the-fly applications, particularly with irregular hole patterns, the company says.

Modular power supply technology allows a smaller power supply footprint. The LaserView™ graphical user interface provides for easy, high-speed interfacing with system level controllers.

Providing an optimized peak power of 16kW, the pulsed laser has a demonstrated capability for percussion drilling low angle (30 degrees or less) holes in both single crystal turbine blade and typical guide vane alloys in the range of 0.25 mm to 0.8 mm in less than one second, with low recast layer thickness, the company says.