CO<sub>2</sub> Laser Micro-Engraving of PMMA Complemented By Taguchi and ANOVA Methods
Hadeel J. Imran, Kadhim A. Hubeatir, Mohanned M. H. AL-Khafaji
Abstract
Abstract Laser micromachining is used in the microfluidic application, especially in biomedical technology, the point of care diagnostics, and chemical analysis. In this research work, a micro-engraving was done on PMMA (Polymethylmethacrylate) using a CO2 laser. Based on the Taguchi design of the experiment; 25 experiments were done to study the effect of laser parameters on the micro-engraving process. The effect of input parameters, laser power, engraving speed, and overlapping space has discussed on the micro-engraving characteristic, surface roughness, engraving depth, and overall time of the process. The results show different surface roughness ranged between 7 – 1.72 µm. Also, the depth results ranged between 20.4 – 5800 µm which could be used in many various applications. The ANOVA results showed that the engraving speed has a significant”effect on surface roughness and”engraving depth, but in engraving time, the laser power has a substantial impact at 94.06%.