Laser assisted machining system for ceramics and hard materials

A controller-readable medium having computer executable instructions for performing the steps of a method for Laser Assisted Machining (LAM) of a finished part from a workpiece mounted in a machining arrangement, according to a machining process, using a cutter of the machining arrangement for removing material from the workpiece along a cutting path including a cutting zone of the workpiece ahead of the cutter where the cutting zone is heated to a desired machining temperature by a laser heating arrangement having one or more lasers operatively disposed for heating the cutting zone and at least one pyrometer arrangement for detecting a temperature of the cutting zone, wherein the method comprises:

• inputting into a computer, dynamic computer models in machine readable format for the workpiece, the finished part, the machining arrangement, and the laser heating arrangement, the dynamic computer models all being related to a common reference system, describing the physical shape and all potential movement and orientation of the models with respect to the common reference system;
• inputting material property data in machine readable format into the computer for the workpiece and machining arrangement, including thermal and optical material properties of the workpiece and desired machining temperature data;
• inputting laser and pyrometer operating parameters for the laser heating arrangement in machine readable format into the computer, with the laser operating parameters including input and output power, line-of-sight coordinates and beam configuration parameters for each laser of the one or more lasers, and the pyrometer operating parameters including input and output operating parameters of the pyrometer arrangement;
• using the computer to generate a recommended machining plan including the cutting path and movement and orientation of the models of the workpiece, the finished part and the machining arrangement during machining of the finished part from the workpiece;
• using the computer to generate a recommended heating plan for the laser heating arrangement from the recommended machining plan, to heat the cutting zone with the one or more lasers and monitor the temperature of the cutting zone with the pyrometer arrangement, with the recommended heating plan including movement and orientation of the model of the laser heating arrangement during machining of the finished part from the workpiece;
• using the controller to verify that the cutting zone of the workpiece is maintained at the desired machining temperature during the recommended machining plan;
• using the controller to verify that the one or more lasers and the one or more pyrometers utilized in the recommended heating plan have an unobstructed line-of-site from their location to the cutting zone throughout the recommended machining plan;
• iterating the above method until the recommended machining and heating plans result in the cutting zone being maintained at the desired temperature with no obstruction of the line-of-sight throughout the machining process;
• and
• then machining the workpiece in accordance with the recommended machining and heating plans if the controller verifies that the cutting zone is maintained at the desired temperature and the line-of-sight is not obstructed throughout the machining process.