<title>Laser Assisted Machining</title>

The availability of high power cw carbon dioxide lasers with sufficient ruggedness, reliability and simplicity of operation for use in manufacturing facilities has led to the development of new machining methods. These methods currently involve the localized vaporization or melting of the material due to beam heating. (1) In the case of metallic materials beam heating is supplemented with burning enhanced by a flow of oxidizing gases at the point of impingement of the laser beam. In our research, we have developed a new and dif-ferent method of cutting with a laser, laser assisted hot spot machining (LAM), in which the laser is used to heat the volume of material directly in front of a single point cutting tool to a temperature less than its melting point.(2,3)The application of gas torch and induction heating to assist, in the turning of metals was first studied in the United States by Tour and Fletche(1949). Concurrently, Schmidt investigated the use of gas torch heating in milling. Although many advantages were reported such as reduction in power consumption tool life improvement and improvement in surface finish, hot-machining has not been perceived as a practical and economically viable method by industry. Recently, however, with the development of more intense heat sources such as the plasma-arc(5) and the laser, hot machining has become more attractive in specific applications as a metal removal technique.