Annular gas-assisted water-jet guided laser manufacturing groove structure of Inconel 718 alloy.

Inconel 718 offers high oxidation resistance, mechanical strength, and heat resistance, which enables turbofan engines to maintain excellent performance in an operating environment of 1000 °C. However, these properties make Inconel 718 difficult to machine with conventional machining techniques. Water-jet guided laser (WJGL) is a composite processing technology that combines water cooling and laser ablation technology, which is advantageous and promising for processing Inconel 718. While, the water layer on the substrate surface in processing limits WJGL's ability to ablate the metal, which leads to burrs formed when manufacturing groove structures. Therefore, a new method for manufacturing groove structure on Inconel 718 by annular gas-assisted water-jet guided laser (AGAWJGL) is proposed in this paper. In this study, the burr is reduced, and the material removal efficiency is improved by removing the water layer from the substrate surface with a gas-assisted. Then, groove processing experiments are performed on Inconel 718 metal plates with a thickness of 1 mm. The experimental results show that the average size of burrs reduces by 36%, and the depth of grooves increases by 13%. These provide the theoretical foundation for the WJGL machining of Inconel 718. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]