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4 June 2009

Major order for laser drilling machines

Sauer Lasertec, part of the DMG group, has announced the sale of an additional four Lasertec 80 PowerDrill machines to a leading European turbine engine manufacturer. This company already owns several other Lasertec drilling systems.

The Lasertec 80 PowerDrill machines will be used to drill both cylindrical and shaped film cooling holes in cast turbine components. At the recent Symposium on Aerospace Laser Applications (SALA) several speakers, including Friedemann Lell of Sauer Lasertec, described shaped hole drilling applications that are now under development or in production at engine manufacturers' plants.
Shaped holes are typically the exit hole on an aircraft turbine engine blade, where the high temperatures from the engine's enhanced performance cause these components to function in an extremely hot environment. The cooling holes in the blade are round up to the exit where they take a funnel shape with a rectangular or fingernail-shaped exit hole that causes a laminar flow of cooling air over the blade surface. The shaped exit hole increases the cooling ability of a typical cylindrical hole.

The 5-axis Lasertec machines use linear motors and torque motors for high acceleration, up to 1.2g, with the highest accuracy, 0.010mm, and reliability in the industry that enables end users to produce parts with tighter tolerances along with exceptional repeatability.
Features specifically developed for the laser drilling of turbine components such as tactile part probing, hole breakthrough detection, and the sophisticated LaserSoft PowerDrill' software further enhance the machine's capability.


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