Effect of temporal control of air/water environment on laser drilling of nickel-based alloy with thermal barrier coatings

This study adopted nanosecond laser to conduct drilling research on nickel-based alloy with thermal barrier coatings (TBCs). The experiments of different processing environments on quality and efficiency of laser drilling were conducted. Through combination of high processing efficiency under air environment and good processing quality under water environment, temporal control of air/water environment on laser drilling is proposed. Since drilling efficiency was not significantly reduced, cold machining effect of water was used to improve processing quality. Research results proved that laser processing method with temporal control of air/water environment has advantages of traditional laser drilling under air and water. Laser drilling of temporal control of air/water environment was improved in quality in comparison with single environment.