Laser polishing operation for die and moulds finishing

The presented article proposes a laser based polishing operation which consists in the application of a laser beam in a very controlled way. The work presents several polishing tests carried out with CO₂ and High Power Diode Lasers, for a DIN 1.2379 tool steel tempered up to 62HRC. This material is commonly used for injection moulds and inserts for stamping dies. The Laser Polishing tests results have been used as the input data for a design of experiments (DoE), therefore the optimum operation parameters for the process as well as its degree of influence in the melted surface have been defined. Experimental tests have been performed from different initial roughness values obtained by High Speed Milling operations. Reductions of final roughness higher than 80% have been obtained with respect to the initial roughness, with values below 0.8μm Ra.