Pin-Shaped Surface Structures Generated by Laser Single Pulse Drilling for High-Strength Interfaces in Thermally Joined Polymer–Metal Hybrids

Laser structuring is by far the most investigated metal surface-pretreatment method for creating adhesion in polymer–metal hybrids. Especially, cone-like protrusions show excellent wetting behaviour as well as high compound strength. However, the processing time is extremely high. Therefore, this paper assesses a process strategy for creating pin structures with scalable height by single pulse drilling with an Nd/YVO(4) nanosecond laser system on EN AW-6082 aluminium alloy. The strength testing is carried out by butt-bonded hollow cylinder torsion. The samples are manufactured by heat-conduction thermal joining with polyamide 6. Ten different surface structures with two different ablation diameters are investigated and compared to cone-like protrusions in terms of processing time, wetting behaviour, shear strength and fracture behaviour. The experimental results show that pulse drilling pins structures with high aspect ratio reach-strength values close to cone-like protrusions but with 31 times higher processing rate.