International Journal of Machine Tools & Manufacture 42 (2002) 985995

Comparative statistical analysis of hole taper and circularity in laser percussion drilling
M. Ghoreishi, D.K.Y. Low , L. Li
Laser Processing Research Centre, Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST), P.O. Box 88, Manchester M60 1QD, UK Received 4 June 2001; received in revised form 18 March 2002; accepted 22 March 2002

Abstract The present study investigates the relationships and parameter interactions between six controllable variables on the hole taper and circularity in laser percussion drilling. Experiments have been conducted on stainless steel workpieces and a comparison was made between stainless steel and mild steel (IMechE Part B: J. Eng. Manufact. (in press)). Laser peak power, laser pulse width, pulse frequency, number of pulses, assist gas pressure and focal plane position were selected as independent process variables. The central composite design (CCD) was employed to plan the experiments in order to achieve required information with reduced number of experiments. The process performance was evaluated in terms of equivalent entrance diameter, hole taper and hole entrance circularity. The ratio of minimum to maximum Ferets diameter was considered as circularity characteristic of the hole. The models of these three process characteristics were developed by linear multiple regression technique. The initial models were computed according to the least squares procedure and were nalised by stepwise regression method. The signicant coefcients were obtained by performing analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 1, 5 and 7% levels of signicance. The nal models were checked by complete residual analysis and nally were experimentally veried. It was found that the pulse frequency had a signicant effect on the hole entrance diameter and hole circularity in drilling stainless steel unlike the drilling of mild steel where the pulse frequency had no signicant effect on the hole characteristics. 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
Keywords: Laser percussion drilling; Statistical modelling; ANOVA; Taper; Circularity; Nd:YAG laser

1. Introduction Laser percussion drilling is widely used in the aerospace industries. It is desirable to make the drilled holes circular and without any taper. Taper and circularity are the most important characteristics of any drilled holes in laser percussion drilling process. Modelling of the process is required to be able to control these two important characteristics. Developing a physical model for laser percussion drilling is very complicated since a large number of parameters control the process. Simplication of the process in order to develop a physical model, disCorresponding author. Present address: Advanced Machining Group, Process Technology Division, Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology, 71 Nanyang Drive, Singapore 638075, Singapore. Tel.: +65-6793-8471; fax: +65-6792-2779. E-mail address: dlow@gintic.gov.sg (D.K.Y. Low).
0890-6955/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. PII: S 0 8 9 0 - 6 9 5 5 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 3 8 - X

tances the model from the reality and does not give satisfactory results in practice. Therefore, investigators have employed statistical modelling to analyse and determine phenomenological models of the process. Yilbas and Yilbas [2] used a statistical method to investigate the effects of the variation of single pulse laser drilling parameters on the hole geometry for Nimonic 75 workpiece material. In Ref. [3] Yilbas employed a full factorial design to identify the main and rst order interaction effects on the hole quality in single pulse drilling including resolidied material, taper, barrelling, inlet cone, exit cone, surface debris and mean hole diameter. Also Yilbas [4] investigated the effects of ve factors at four levels (focal length of lens, pulse length, focus setting, energy and thickness of material) on drilling speed of single pulse laser drilling for four different materials. In another study Yilbas [5] conducted the drilling experiments on three materials, stainless steel, nickel and

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titanium by using single pulse laser beam. He used a full factorial design with four factors at four levels (pulse length, focal position, energy and thickness of workpiece) to study the effects of each factors and their interactions on the hole characteristics. Resolidied material, taper, barrelling, inlet cone, exit cone, surface debris and mean hole diameter were considered as hole characteristics. In all of the preceding studies Yilbas has employed single pulse laser drilling in his experiments, thus the effect of parameters such as number of pulses and pulse frequency which are two important factors in laser percussion drilling have not been investigated. Tam et al [6] optimised the laser deep hole drilling of Inconel 718 using Taguchi method containing an L18 (21 37) orthogonal array design to minimise the drilling time. They used single, double and triple pulse shapes plus four factors at three levels (pulse energy, pulse duration, focal position and assist gas pressure) in their design. Kamalu and Byrd [7] assessed the effects of lens focal length, position of the focal plane relative to the material surface and laser energy on laser drilling performance. Their drilling performance was measured by diameter of laser-drilled holes. These three factors were studied at two levels and two sets of 23 factorial design were analysed. French et al [8] used two level factors in Nd:YAG laser percussion drilling to nd the signicant factors from a list of 17 factors. The main effects of factors and rst order and second order interactions were analysed. They found that pulse shape, energy, peak power, focal position, gas pressure and Nd:YAG laser rod were the most effective factors on the hole taper and circularity. In addition to statistical analysis of hole taper, some recent efforts have also been made to control hole taper via the development of drilling techniques [912]. In the present study a central composite design (CCD) and response surface method (RSM) have been used to analyse the effect of the six factors on the process. The results obtained using stainless steel are compared with those for mild steel workpieces [1] in order to assess the effect of the different process parameters and also material properties in laser percussion drilling. The hole entrance diameter and hole taper and circularity were regarded as characteristics of the hole and were modelled by a statistical approach.

ments (hole diameter, hole taper and hole circularity) were used as output at each set of parameters. The experiments were performed in random order to remove the effects of lurking variables such as environmental situations and laser machine conditions which were not included in the experiments, both of which may be changed with time and affects the responses [13]. 2.1. Design of experiments The traditional method of experimentation i.e. varying one factor at a time (OFAT) and studying its effects, would be quite tedious and uneconomical especially if the number of variables is large. Furthermore, such experiments cannot predict the presence of interactions between the different factors. With a properly designed experiment, it should be possible to determine, with a much reduced number of experiments, the effect of changing any one variable with the same accuracy as if only one factor has been varied at a time, and interaction effects between the factors. The discussion on interaction effects between the factors is very crucial and can reveal how the process can be controlled in order to achieve the desirable process outputs. One useful class of such designs, which are economical in the number of experiments required, is the CCD [14]. CCD is one type of RSM. The RSM is a collection of experimental design techniques and regression methods [15]. Multiple linear regression technique was employed to develop three models for three responses; equivalent entrance diameter, hole taper and the ratio of minimum to maximum Ferets diameters for the hole entrance (circularity). A 1/2 scale CCD with 52 trials was selected. This is a second order design and can handle linear, quadratic and interaction terms in the process modelling. CCDs require ve levels of each factor in coded form: a, 1, 0, 1, and +a. The a is a function of k, number of independent factors [16]. In this design the level intervals for each factor depends on the number of factors. In the selected design the interval of levels for each factor should be 2.37, 1, 0, +1 and +2.37 in coded form in order to have a rotatable design [15]. Rotatability of a design means that the variation in the response predicted by a model will be constant at a given distance from the center point of the design at which all factors are set on their middle level. Coding of factors allows the calculations to be performed independent of the units for each factor. 2.2. Process variables Six variables comprising laser peak power, laser pulse width, pulse frequency, number of laser pulses, assist gas pressure and focal plane position (f.p.p.) were selected as process variables. The f.p.p. was considered zero when the it was set on the material surface and above or below

2. Experimental details Stainless steel 304 sheet with 2.5 mm thickness was used as workpiece material. The sheets were drilled by an bre-optic delivered 400 W pulsed Nd:YAG laser emitting at 1.06 m wavelength. Oxygen was used as assist gas in the experiments. Through-holes were drilled in all experiments and each experiment was repeated ve times and the mean values of the ve response measure-

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Fig. 1.

Schematic diagram illustrating the f.p.p.

the surface was considered positive and negative f.p.p. respectively (Fig. 1). The number of experiments for 1/2 scale CCD with six factors is 45 7 replications of centre runs in order to avoid singularities during regression and estimating pure or experimental error [14]. The independent variables and their levels in CCD are shown in Table 1. The variable ranges in the present study compared with variable ranges for mild steel [1] are similar except pulse width which for this study is 0.6 to 2 ms because with pulse width less than 0.6 ms the laser beam cannot break through the material to make a through hole which in turn showed that there was a certain minimum level for pulse width and also its importance effect on the process. The equivalent entrance diameter, taper and ratio of minimum to maximum Ferets diameter for hole entrance were selected as outputs or responses to analyse the process performance. Whilst the rst response can be regarded as nominal hole diameter, the third response can be considered as hole circularity. The circularity of hole exit was not considered because the exit holes were more circular than the holes entrance. The equivalent entrance diameter was calculated as that of a circle of area equals the entrance area. The taper was dened by Eq. (1) (Fig. 2). Taper() dentrance dexit 180 2t (1)

Fig. 2.

Geometrical features of laser drilled hole.

tion (Fig. 3) [16]. The Ferets diameters were measured at 3 steps. Thus, for each hole entrance, 60 diameters were measured and then ratio of minimum to maximum diameter was calculated. The spatter around the holes was removed by abrasive blasting in order to obtain the best result during image processing. This was done in such a way to remove only the spatter without any damage to the hole characteristics (Fig. 4). By Visilog software [17] the images from the hole entrance and exit were analysed and equivalent

where dentrance is the hole entrance diameter, dexit is the hole exit diameter and t is the material thickness. Ferets diameter is the distance between two tangents on opposite sides of the hole, parallel to some xed direcTable 1 Independent process variables and their levels in CCD Variable Peak power (kW) Laser pulse width (ms) Pulse frequency (Hz) No. of pulses Assist gas pressure (bar) Focal plane position (mm) Coded levels Actual levels 3 0.6 10 4 2 0.9 2.37

Fig. 3.

One of the Ferets diameters at hole entrance.

4.16 1.01 22 9 3.2 0.38 1

5 1.30 30 12 4 0 0

5.84 1.59 39 16 4.8 +0.38 +1

7 2 50 20 6 +0.9 +2.37

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Fig. 4.

(a) Hole entrance and (b) hole exit after drilling. (c) Hole entrance and (d) hole exit after spatter removing.

entrance diameter, equivalent exit diameter and maximum and minimum Ferets diameters for hole entrance were measured to obtain the values of three considered responses.

ber of observation), X is an (n p) matrix of the levels of the independent variables (p k 1, k is the number of process variable), b is a (p 1) vector of the regression coefcients and e is an (n 1) vector of random errors. The tted regression model is [18] y Xb (3)

3. Statistical modelling and data analysis Three models were developed to relate three responses or process characteristics to six process variables. The mathematical models were built by means of multiple linear regression analysis. Modelling was started with a quadratic model including linear, squared and interaction terms and if the non-linearity was not appropriate, then the model could be simplied to rst order or linear model. All developed models were checked and selected in quadratic form in order to t the data as accurate as possible. The signicant terms in the model were found by analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 1 and 5% levels of signicant for entrance diameter model and 1 and 7% for taper and circularity models due to higher source of variations [13]. The method of least squares was used to estimate the regression coefcients in a multiple regression model [18]. The model, in terms of the observations, in matrix notation is y Xb e (2) where y is a (n 1) vector of observation (n is the num-

where b is the least squares estimators of the regression coefcients (b) vector (b0,b1,.,bk) and can be calculated based on the following equation: b (XX ) 1X y (4) In this equation XX is a (p p) symmetric matrix and X y is a (p 1) column vector. In scalar notion, a tted second order model is [18]
k

b0
j 1

bjxj
i j

bijxixj

(5)

The coefcient b0 represents the response at the centre of the experiment when all of the variables are 0. The bj, and bij represent the coefcients of linear, quadratic and linear-by-linear interaction effects of the variables respectively. The difference between the observation yi and the tted value y is a residual. The regression coef cients were computed according to the least squares procedure and were nalised by stepwise regression technique (Table 4). The signicant terms are shown in

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Table 2 ANOVA table of entrance diameter model Source Model A B CD CE DF EF Residual Lack of t Pure error Total Sum of square 1.782E+10 4.311E+9 3.981E+9 1.110E+9 1.158E+9 1.771E+9 5.493E+9 1.237E+10 9.848E+9 2.527E+9 3.020E+10 df 6 1 1 1 1 1 1 45 38 7 51 Mean square 2.971E+9 4.311E+9 3.981E+9 1.110E+9 1.158E+9 1.771E+9 5.493E+9 2.750E+8 2.592E+8 3.609E+8 F value 10.80 15.68 14.48 4.03 4.21 6.44 19.98 0.72 Probability 0.0001 0.0003 0.0004 0.0500 0.0460 0.0147 0.0001 0.7633 Effect H. signicant H. signicant H. signicant Signicant Signicant Signicant H. signicant Insignicant

Highly signicant, i.e. a F: focal plane position.

0.01; signicant, i.e. a

0.05. A: peak power; B: pulse width; C: pulse frequency; D: no of pulses; E: gas pressure;

Tables 2 and 3 for entrance diameter and hole taper and circularity respectively. The accuracy of the models have been checked by complete residual analysis including checking normal probability line of residuals, outliers, Cooks distance and leverage [18]. Power transformation of the models have been chosen according to the Box Cox plots [18] in order to obtain minimum residual sum of squares in the transformed model. The nal models were veried by experiments and the predicted results from the models were compared with experimental results. In the worst cases, the errors were
Table 3 ANOVA tables of hole taper and hole circularity models Source Hole taper Model A F B2 DF EF Residual Lack of Fit Pure Error Total Hole circularity (min./max. Ferets diameter of hole entrance) Model C D F B2 F2 Residual Lack of t Pure error Total Sum of squares df Mean square

9.5% for equivalent entrance diameter, 17% for the hole taper and 5.8% for the hole circularity at entrance.

4. Discussion 4.1. Hole entrance diameter In the case of hole entrance diameter, laser peak power and laser pulse width have highly signicant effect on the model (Table 2) and increasing the peak

F value

Probability

Effect

19.30 1.94 7.74 2.17 1.58 5.86 20.30 15.05 5.25 39.60

5 1 1 1 1 1 46 39 7 51

3.86 1.94 7.74 2.17 1.58 5.86 0.44 0.39 0.75

8.74 4.40 17.54 4.93 3.57 13.29 0.51

0.0001 0.0414 0.0001 0.0314 0.0650 0.0007 0.9113

H. signicant Signicant H. signicant Signicant Signicant H. signicant Insignicant

0.080 0.023 0.013 0.014 0.014 0.014 0.17 0.087 0.080 0.25

5 1 1 1 1 1 46 39 7 51

0.016 0.023 0.013 0.014 0.014 0.014 3.638E-3 2.230E-3 0.011

4.40 6.21 3.46 3.95 3.98 3.84 0.19

0.0023 0.0163 0.0694 0.0528 0.0520 0.0561 0.9997

H. signicant Signicant Signicant Signicant Signicant Signicant Insignicant

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Table 4 Final models of laser percussion drilling in terms of six independent coded variables Coefcient (Ent. dia)1.8 (micron)1.8 +2.067E+005 +9976.77 +9586.62 Insignicant Insignicant Insignicant Insignicant Insignicant +5888.34 6014.96 7438.93 13102.13 Taper () (Circularity)3

0 bA bB bC bD bF b2 B b2 F bC D bC E bD F bE F

+3.05 0.21 Insignicant Insignicant Insignicant 0.42 +0.19 Insignicant Insignicant Insignicant 0.22 0.43

+0.67 Insignicant Insignicant 0.023 +0.017 0.018 0.016 +0.015 Insignicant Insignicant Insignicant Insignicant

power or pulse width results in greater entrance diameter (Fig. 5) which shows generally laser pulse with higher energy produces larger holes. Also from the Table 2 it can be seen that interactions effect between number of pulses with pulse frequency, assist gas pressure with pulse frequency, f.p.p. with number of pulse are signicant and interaction effect between f.p.p. with assist gas pressure is highly signicant. Positive f.p.p. produces hole with less taper and is discussed in the next section. Thus, in the case of positive f.p.p., increasing assist gas pressure (Fig. 6(d)) and number of pulse (Fig. 6(c)) produce smaller holes (smaller entrance diameter). Whilst, at higher assist gas pressure decreasing pulse frequency

Fig. 5.

Main effect of parameters on the hole entrance diameter.

generates smaller hole entrance diameter (Fig. 6(b)). From Fig. 6(a) it can be seen that at lower pulse frequency larger number of pulses produces smaller hole diameter. Therefore, it can be summarised that working at lower peak power, shorter pulse width (less energy per pulse), positive f.p.p., higher assist gas pressure, larger number of pulses and lower pulse frequency produces smaller hole entrance diameter. It should be noted that the investigation on the effect of different variables on the responses should be done such that the variation of the variables are regarded simultaneously, thus the presented discussion about the effect of the different variables cannot be used individually for the effect of each variable. Also, the qualitatively expression through the discussion, such as larger, smaller, shorter so on, should be considered respect to variable ranges which have been used in the study. At positive f.p.p. (Fig. 1) the material surface receives less energy compared with the zero f.p.p. At positive f.p.p. the distance between assist gas nozzle tip with material surface becomes wider and gas pressure cannot generate larger entrance diameter. On the contrary, at negative f.p.p. the distance becomes narrower and the gas pressure can produce larger hole entrance diameter. Thus, at positive f.p.p. material surface receives lower energy which in turn produces smaller entrance hole diameter. Also, at positive f.p.p., higher gas pressure along with larger number of pulses allows the laser beam to reach the bottom of the hole, producing exit hole. As a result the concentration of the energy at hole entrance becomes lower than that for lower assist gas pressure and smaller number of pulses. Effectiveness of the pulse frequency and its interactions with number of pulses and assist gas pressure show that the material removing process is not nished before the next pulse is started. At lower pulse frequency, in the pulse off time, (the time in which there is no laser energy) the material has sufcient time to be cooled down and its temperature can reduce. However, at higher pulse frequency the material temperature can be added up resulting in more material removal or a larger entrance diameter [19]. As a comparison of the results with the previous study on mild steel [1], for mild steel the number of pulses and pulse frequency had no signicant effect on the hole entrance diameter. However, for stainless steel their interactions with each other and also interaction of pulse frequency with assist gas pressure and interaction of number of pulses with f.p.p. are signicant (Table 2). This can be caused by lower thermal diffusivity of stainless steel (3.74 10 3m2s 1) compared with the mild steels thermal diffusivity (13.6 10 3m2s 1). Thus the energy produced by laser beam is more concentrated in the hole for stainless steel than the concentrated energy for mild steel which can be transferred quicker to the adjacent material. It shows that existence of chromium as an alloy material in steel can cause the material

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Fig. 6.

3D surfaces of hole entrance diameter model (interactions between different signicant parameters).

removal process lasting longer and interacts with the next pulse. The signicance of the pulse frequency and number of laser pulses have reduced the signicant level of pulse width in drilling stainless steel in comparison with mild steel [1]. In drilling mild steel the main effect of pulse width and its interactions with assist gas pressure and f.p.p. were signicant [1]. However, in drilling stainless steel only the main effect of pulse width is signicant (Table 2). Therefore, it can be summarised that in drilling mild steel during each individual pulse the material removal process is nished before the next pulse is started. However, in drilling stainless steel this process is not nished and the next pulse interacts with the previous pulse, thus the pulse frequency and number of pulses inuence the entrance diameter. It can be said that the number of pulses and pulse frequency play a signicant role in drilling stainless steel. However they have no signicant effect in drilling mild steels. A summary of the parameters effect in drilling stainless steel and mild steel is shown in Fig. 7. 4.2. Hole taper The hole taper depends on the hole entrance diameter and hole exit diameter. From Table 3 is revealed that the main effects of peak power and pulse width (squared term) are signicant whilst the main effect of f.p.p. is

highly signicant. Also, The interactions between f.p.p. with number of pulses and assist gas pressure are respectively signicant and highly signicant. The main effect curve or perturbation curve (Fig. 8) shows that at positive f.p.p. and higher peak power the hole taper is reduced. However, at a certain point for pulse width (middle setting) the minimum hole taper can be achieved. Working at positive f.p.p. and increasing number of pulses (Fig. 9(a)) and assist gas pressure (Fig. 9(b)) produces hole with lower taper. In summary, positive f.p.p., higher peak power, higher number of pulses, higher assist gas pressure and moderate pulse width produce more cylindrical hole or reduce the hole taper. It was discussed that at positive f.p.p., larger number of pulses and higher assist gas pressure, lower peak power and pulse width produce smaller hole entrance diameters. Excessive number of pulses after the laser beam breaks through the sheet material, increases the hole exit diameter which can be larger than the entrance hole diameter [10]. Thus, the taper which depends on the difference between entrance diameter and exit diameter, will be reduced at a higher number of pulses. This result can be concluded for the effect of higher assist gas pressure because at higher gas pressures the effect of the pressure on the hole exit diameter is greater than that on the hole entrance. Thus, at higher assist gas pressures the hole taper can be reduced. Posi-

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Fig. 7.

Diagram of parameters effect on the hole entrance diameter for stainless steel and mild steel.

Fig. 8.

Main effect of parameters on the hole taper. Fig. 9. 3D surfaces of hole taper model (interactions between different signicant parameters).

tive f.p.p. produces holes with less taper because the beam diameter at the hole exit is larger than that for the zero or negative f.p.p. (Fig. 1). Higher peak power produces larger entrance diameter but at the same time produces larger hole exit diameter because after the laser beam breaks through the material the effect of the peak power which results in greater energy per pulse, has more effect on the hole exit than the hole entrance, resulting less hole taper [9]. Pulse frequency has no effect on the hole taper. However it has an effect on the entrance diameter. This shows that the effect of the pulse frequency on the hole exit diameter neutralises its effect on the hole entrance diam-

eter. Thus in total it has no effect on the hole taper. Also it shows that the pulse frequency has a signicant effect on the hole exit diameter and the preceding discussion on the effect of the pulse frequency on the hole entrance can be extended for the hole exit. In comparison with the results of mild steel [1], it can be concluded that the effect of the peak power, number of pulses, assist gas pressure and f.p.p. are identical in drilling mild steel and stainless steel. Higher peak power, larger number of pulses, higher gas pressure reduce hole

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Fig. 10.

Diagram of parameters effect on the hole taper for stainless steel and mild steel.

taper for both materials. However, higher pulse width decreases hole taper for mild steel but for stainless steel moderate pulse width has the same result. It should be noted that pulse frequency has no effect on hole taper in drilling mild steel or stainless steel under the described operating ranges (Table 3). Also, the pulse width has less effect on the hole taper of drilling stainless steel than that of mild steel. In drilling stainless steel, pulse width and its interactions with number of pulses, assist gas pressure and f.p.p. have signicant effect. However, in drilling mild steel only the main effect of the pulse width is signicant [1]. A summary of the variables effect on the hole taper in drilling stainless steel and mild steel is shown by a ow chart in Fig. 10. 4.3. Hole circularity The ratio of minimum to maximum Ferets diameters at hole entrance was used to measure hole circularity. The hole exits were more circular than hole entrance, thus only the hole entrance circularity was analysed and modelled by the preceding techniques. The pulse width, pulse frequency, number of pulses and focal plane position have a signicant effect on the hole circularity (Table 3). However, laser peak power, assist gas pressure and none of the interaction effects between the variables have signicant effect on the circularity response. It should be noted that the effect of all the effective parameters are signicant and there is no highly signicant parameter. This shows that the variation of the circularity response due to variation of the independent parameters, has been dispersed between the signicant factors. The main effect curves of the effective parameters (Fig. 11) shows that at negative f.p.p., lower pulse frequency, larger number of pulses and moderate pulse width produce better entrance circularity. At lower

Fig. 11.

Main effect of parameters on the hole circularity.

pulse frequency the pulse off-time becomes longer and the material has more time to be cooled down and becomes closer to solid state. This can prevent agitation and any disorder during the material removal process and result in greater circularity. Excessive pulses after the laser beam breaks through leads to molten material exiting from the hole exit [11]. After this stage the extra number of pulses affect the hole exit and in the meantime removes the scars from the hole entrance and increases entrance circularity. At negative f.p.p., the laser beam at hole entrance is converging. Conversely, at the positive f.p.p., the beam is diverging, thus working

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Fig. 12. Diagram of parameters effect on the hole circularity for stainless steel and mild steel.

at negative f.p.p. produces greater circularity but larger entrance diameter. Thus, for drilling the stainless steel an optimisation procedure should be done in order to nd out for a specied hole diameter which set of parameters can produce higher circularity. The comparison between the effect of parameters on circularity in laser drilling of mild steel with the circularity in drilling stainless steel shows that for stainless steel pulse frequency has a signicant effect. However for mild steel it has no signicant effect [1]. The effect of the considered parameters on the hole circularity in drilling stainless steel and mild steel is summarised in Fig. 12.

5. Conclusions The following summarises results achieved based on the planned design by CCD and using RSM for the drilling stainless steels inside the specied variable ranges. Also, the qualitative expression for parameter values are only valid respect to employed variable ranges. The main ndings of the work are: 1. Working at lower peak power, shorter pulse width (less energy per pulse), positive f.p.p., higher assist gas pressure, larger number of pulses and lower pulse frequency produce a smaller hole entrance diameter. 2. Positive f.p.p., higher peak power, higher number of pulses, higher assist gas pressure and moderate pulse width, produce more cylindrical hole with less hole taper. The pulse frequency has no signicant effect on the hole taper and the effect of the pulse frequency on the hole exit diameter neutralises its effect on the hole entrance diameter. 3. Negative f.p.p., lower pulse frequency, larger number

of pulses and moderate pulse width produce greater entrance circularity. Laser peak power and assist gas pressure have no signicant effect on the hole entrance circularity. 4. There is no relationship between the hole entrance diameter, hole taper and hole circularity in drilling stainless steel. In drilling stainless steel for any specied hole diameter, optimum parameter settings should be obtained in order to achieve less hole taper and greater circular hole. 5. The main difference of the effect of the parameters on the entrance diameter and hole circularity between drilling stainless steel wand drilling mild steel is that, the pulse frequency in drilling stainless steel has signicant effect. However, in drilling mild steel it has no signicant effect [1]. This has reduced the signicance level of pulse width in drilling stainless steel compared with the drilling mild steel. As for mild steel, the pulse frequency in drilling stainless steel has no signicant effect on hole taper. Physical phenomena involved in drilling two materials have been discussed to support the above parameter relationships.

References
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