Laser Cutting Aluminum Bonded Panels 1

[Tully55]

Hello:

I am a BSME in the Aerospace Industry who works with a lot of bonded assemblies. We have a fair amount of bonded panels to process that are composed of a .020 aluminum skin and a .012 aluminum skin, both bonded together with EA9628 adhesive. Each of these panels needs to have 300+ holes cut (drilled) into them. We wanted to use a CNC Laser to cut the holes (and part perimeter), but can not verify that the heat affected zones do not interfere with the adhesive. Currently, we are projecting using drill templates and drilling every hole. This, obviously, is not our first choice, as it is time consuming compared to an automated process. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[ajack1]

Have you considered cutting with a water jet?

 

[Tully55]

Yes, we have considered a water jet. We have a laser in our facility, so the optimal solution would be to verify that we can use it. Also, we would need to verify that a water jet cutting application is acceptable if we go that route. Thanks for the reply.

 

[mk2000]

Tully55

Have you tried testing a part of the adherend and the adhesive to see what effect there are?

Also look at this link.
Shear Stress-Strain Data for Structural Adhesives

Regards

 

[tygerdawg]

Tully,

I might have some suggestions, but I need you to answer some questions first:
(1) what is size of panels?
(2) are panels flat or curvilinear?
(3) what is size of holes?
(4) how thick are panels?

TygerDawg

 

[Tully55]

1) The panels are approximately 3' x 4'.
2) The panels are flat.
3) The holes vary from .098" to .203".
4) The panels are .012" + .020" + .005 (adhesive) = app. .037"

Thanks.

 

[tygerdawg]

Tully, please email me at my BLIND email, I will get back in touch with you.

tygerdawg@excite.com

Be sure to put "Tully" in the subject line somewhere I don't treat it as spam.

Cheers

TygerDawg

 

[noreaster]

We cut melamine (phenolic/paper composite) bonded to an .018" (although some are as thick as .12") aluminum substrate. No problems with delamination. There is a bit of a mark where it first pierces, but the holes (.1" smallest) are very good quality for size and position. The pierce is very fast mSec, and the feedrate is fast enough that there is not really any residual heat after the cut. We cut using 200W Laser, nitrogen generator, 2mm nozzle. Our customer makes composite panels and we cut the upper and lower separately, and assemble with honeycomb using a jig in the curing press.

Andrew Hall
PEI, Canada