Laser microperforation of stainless steel burners

Objective. Microperforate with great aesthetic and dimensional quality

Our client, a burner manufacturer, wants to make microperforations in their stainless steel for one of their new products. They need great dimensional and aesthetic quality for the application to which this new product is directed. One of the requirements is that the technology we select can be used for the different thicknesses of sheet metal they have.

Solution. We select a versatile laser and manufacture the prototypes

The first step, taking into account the requirement for aesthetic and dimensional quality, was to select the laser equipment with which we were going to work. A very versatile laser was chosen that would allow us to work with the client’s different designs and material thicknesses.
In this case, the design and distribution of the microholes was determined by the client, so we focused on optimizing the laser parameters to achieve the best quality in the microperforations with the shortest cycle time possible. To know the aesthetic and dimensional quality of the microperforations, we characterize them using optical and confocal microscopy.

When we had the parameters optimized, we made a small pre-series of each of the microhole designs, in different sheet thicknesses so that the client could internally evaluate the functionality of each of the options they were considering.
The project ended with several iterations to achieve the final microperforation pattern, of which we made the final prototypes.