Laser-perforated metal honeycomb material and method of manufacturing same
In one embodiment of the present disclosure, a method of manufacturing perforated metal honeycomb material includes: printing a roll of metal foil with adhesive; laser perforating the roll of metal foil to provide a plurality of holes in the metal foil; sheeting the printed and perforated roll of metal foil into a plurality of stacked sheets; and laminating the sheets of metal foil into a honeycomb before expansion block (HOBE). In another embodiment of the present disclosure, a perforated metal honeycomb structure includes a metal honeycomb structure having a plurality of laser-drilled holes wherein at least some of the plurality of holes are non-uniform in size, shape, and/or spacing between holes.
1. A method of manufacturing perforated metal honeycomb material, the method comprising:
printing a roll of metal foil with lines of adhesive;
laser perforating the roll of metal foil to provide a plurality of holes in the metal foil;
after laser perforating, sheeting the printed and perforated roll of metal foil into a plurality of stacked sheets, wherein the lines of adhesive of each sheet are superposed with the lines of adhesive of a juxtaposed sheet; and
laminating the sheets of metal foil into a honeycomb before expansion block (HOBE).
2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising cutting the HOBE block into a plurality of HOBE slices.
3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising expanding the HOBE slices into expanded honeycomb structures having a plurality of perforations.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the roll of metal foil is printed with adhesive prior to laser perforation.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the roll of metal foil is printed with adhesive after laser perforation.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the plurality of holes are larger than 0.10 mm in diameter.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the plurality of holes are non-uniform in size and/or shape.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein a spacing between at least some of the plurality of holes is non-uniform.
9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising corrugating the roll of metal foil to produce a corrugated honeycomb structure.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the method of manufacturing perforated metal honeycomb material does not include the process step of compression of the metal foil after the perforation process step.
11. A method of manufacturing perforated metal honeycomb material, the method comprising:
printing a roll of metal foil with lines of adhesive;
laser perforating the roll of metal foil to provide a plurality of holes in the metal foil;
after laser perforating, sheeting the printed and perforated roll of metal foil into a plurality of stacked sheets, wherein the lines of adhesive of each sheet are superposed with the lines of adhesive of a juxtaposed sheet;
laminating the sheets of metal foil into a honeycomb before expansion block (HOBE);
cutting the HOBE block into a plurality of HOBE slices; and
expanding the HOBE slices into expanded honeycomb structures having a plurality of perforations.
12. The method of claim 1 , where the holes produced by laser perforating have a volcano height of less than or about 30 μm.
13. The method of claim 1 , where the holes produced by laser perforating have a volcano height of less than or about 20 μm.
14. The method of claim 1 , where the holes produced by laser perforating have a volcano height of less than or about 1.8 μm.
15. The method of claim 1 , where the holes produced by laser perforating have a volcano height of about 1.8 μm to about 30 μm.
16. The method of claim 1 , where the laser perforating comprises using a nano IR laser.
17. The method of claim 1 , where the laser perforating comprises using a nano UV laser.
18. The method of claim 1 , where the laser perforating comprises using a femto Green laser.