A study on the development of the laser-assisted milling process and a related constitutive equation for silicon nitride

Laser-assisted machining (LAM) has recently been evaluated as an effective process for machining of difficult-to-cut materials, such as ceramics. It is more difficult to reach a sufficient preheating temperature in laser-assisted milling than in turning. A newly developed back-and-forth preheating method is proposed to obtain proper temperature at the laser spot, which is preceding a cutting tool. Experiments were successfully performed using the calculated laser power and feed, as determined by using finite element analyses. In addition, a constitutive equation of the LAM is proposed. The proposed method and constitutive equation can be applied to the laser-assisted milling of ceramics.