1. The principle of laser cutting
Laser cutting is widely used to cut the metal sheet in many industries. Let's start with how laser cutting works: it uses a high-energy laser beam focused onto the material's surface. The arm has no contact with the metal.The intense heat melts, vaporizes, or ignites the material, while assist gas blows away the molten debris to create a precise cut.
Specifically, a laser generator produces a beam that's focused by optical systems into a spot just dozens of microns wide. This spot raises the material's temperature to thousands of degrees Celsius in an instant, causing rapid physical changes.
For metal cutting, take carbon steel: the laser triggers an exothermic reaction with oxygen, accelerating decomposition. Stainless steel, however, relies more on laser energy to melt, with assist gas expelling the slag.
2. The process of laser cutting
Firstly, the electric magnetic chuck is used to raise the metal sheet material and put the metal material into the laser cutting machine, as the following pictures showing:
Then start to write the program and input the instructions.
After that, the machine begins to processing.
3. The advantage of laser cutting
- In productivity, laser cutting speeds reach several meters per minute. For steel sheets under 10mm, it's 1.5 times faster than traditional plasma cutting.
- It also processes diverse materials, from 10-millimeter aluminum plates to acrylic sheets on the same machine.
- Material efficiency is another win: its narrow kerf minimizes waste.
- Being a non-contact process, laser cutting avoids mechanical stress on materials. This matters for easily deformed metals like aluminum.
Laser cutting is suitable for cutting thin sheets, but how do we deal with thick sheets? There is another method named flame cutting.
Flame cutting, also known as oxy-fuel cutting, is a thermal cutting process that uses a high-temperature flame to melt and oxidize metal, enabling precise material separation. The process relies on a mixture of oxygen and a fuel gas (such as acetylene, propane, or natural gas) to generate temperatures exceeding 3,000°C , sufficient to melt and chemically decompose ferrous metals.
