The Characteristics and Application of Laser Cutting

Laser cutting is currently the most widely used laser processing technology in various countries. In many foreign fields, such as automobile manufacturing and machine tool manufacturing, laser cutting is used to process sheet metal parts. With the continuous improvement of the beam quality of high-power lasers, the range of processing objects for sheet metal laser cutting will become wider, including almost all metal materials. For example, a laser can be used to cut complex-shaped three-dimensional parts with high hardness, high brittleness, and high melting point materials. This is also the advantage of laser cutting.

Several key technologies of laser cutting are integrated technologies of light, machine, and electricity. The parameters of the laser beam, the performance and accuracy of the machine, and the CNC system all directly affect the efficiency and quality of laser cutting. The accuracy, efficiency, and quality of laser cutting vary with different parameters, such as cutting power, speed, frequency, material thickness, and material, etc. Therefore, the rich experience of the operator is especially important.

The main advantages of sheet metal laser cutting:

1. Good cutting quality: narrow cut width (generally 0.1-0.5mm), high precision (generally the hole center distance error is 0.1-0.4mm, the contour size error is 0.1-0.5mm), the cut surface roughness is good (generally Ra is 12.5 ～25μm), the slit can be generally welded without secondary processing.

2. Fast cutting speed. For example, using 2kW laser power, the cutting speed of carbon steel with a thickness of 8mm is 1.6m/min; the cutting speed of stainless steel with a thickness of 2mm is 3.5m/min, with a small heat-affected zone and minimal deformation.

3. Clean, safe, and pollution-free, greatly improving the working environment of operators.

Sheet metal laser cutting belongs to non-contact optical thermal processing and is known as "a universal tool that never wears." The workpiece can be tightly arranged or cut in any form so that the raw materials can be fully utilized. Due to the non-contact processing, the distortion of the processed parts is minimized and the amount of wear is reduced.