I. What is laser cutting?
Laser cutting involves using a focused laser beam to quickly melt, vaporize, or flashpoint the material being worked on. The melted or vaporized material is then removed by an auxiliary airflow to complete the cutting process.
See too:
- Laser Cutting Basics: Everything You Need to Know
The laser beam can be focused to a very small spot, resulting in a concentrated heat source and high radiation intensity. This is what differentiates laser cutting from traditional cutting methods such as oxyacetylene flame cutting and plasma cutting.
With its high-quality cuts, fast cutting speed, flexibility and ability to work with a wide variety of materials, laser cutting aligns with the trend of upgrading and transforming the manufacturing industry.
Laser cutting principle
II. Types of laser cutting processes
| Type of process | Description |
| Fusion cutting | The process involves directing the received laser beam onto the metal sheet. When the laser power reaches a certain critical value, it causes the localized area to melt, achieving the desired cutting effect. |
| Steam cutting | This method uses a high power density laser beam to heat the material, avoiding burrs and slag formed by melting due to heat conduction. Part of the material vaporizes and disappears, leaving the edges of the processed material with a very aesthetic appearance. |
| Oxidation cutting | The oxygen sprayed through the nozzle is ignited by the laser beam, causing an intense chemical reaction that generates thermal processing. For brittle materials prone to thermal damage, the laser beam is used for rapid and controlled cutting, creating a significant thermal gradient and mechanical deformation in the area, leading to the formation of cracks in the material. This process is also known as controlled fracturing cutting. |
See too:
- Laser Cutting vs. plasma cutting (final difference analysis)
III. Advantages of laser cutting
- High-quality cuts: Laser cutting results in a narrow cut with good parallelism and perpendicularity, a smooth cutting surface and a small heat-affected zone.
- Fast and efficient: Laser cutting is much faster than traditional cutting methods. For example, using a 1200W CO2 laser to cut a 2mm thick low carbon steel plate can result in a cutting speed of 6 cuts per minute.
- Flexible processing: Laser cutting allows you to cut sheet metal parts of any shape and size programmatically. The cutting path can also be optimized to minimize material loss and reduce void paths.
- Wide Material Compatibility: Laser cutting can be used to cut almost all metallic and non-metallic materials, including those that are hard, have high melting points, are brittle or viscous.
| Benefits | Specific features |
| Superior cut quality | Laser cutting, characterized by a small laser spot and high energy density, achieves high cutting speed and therefore excellent cutting quality. |
| High cutting efficiency | Due to the transmission characteristics of lasers, laser cutting machines typically come equipped with one or more CNC benches. The entire cutting process can be fully controlled by computer. By simply changing the CNC program, you can easily cut parts of different shapes. This configuration allows two-dimensional and three-dimensional cutting. |
| Fast cutting speed | With its high energy density and non-contact nature, laser cutting can quickly melt, vaporize, ablate, or ignite the material being cut, resulting in a fast cutting speed. |
| Contactless cutting | During laser cutting, the cutting torch does not touch the part, eliminating tool wear. When processing parts of different shapes, there is no need to replace “tools”. You just need to adjust the laser output parameters. Laser cutting produces low noise, minimal vibration and no pollution. |
| Versatility in Material Cutting | Compared to traditional cutting technologies such as oxyacetylene cutting and plasma cutting, laser cutting can handle a wider variety of materials. This includes metals, non-metals, metal-based and non-metallic composite materials, leather, wood and fibers. |
4. Laser cutting versus traditional cutting
| Cutting method: | Brief introduction | Comparison with laser cutting |
| Thermal cut-off | Such as cutting with oxygen fuel gas (such as acetylene) and plasma cutting | Wide cutting, large heat-affected area, obvious thermal deformation of the workpiece, non-metallic cutting is not allowed. |
| Machining | Mechanical stamping, cutting, sawing and other processing methods | It will cause blade deformation, burr and wear, wide incision, low material utilization rate, great threat to operator safety and serious noise and dust pollution. |
| Electrical machining | Generally, there are two methods, EDM and electrochemical machining, which utilize electrical corrosion and dissolution effect. They are mainly used for fine machining of hard materials with good notch roughness. |
The cutting speed is several orders of magnitude slower than laser cutting. |
| Water cut | When water is pressurized to 2700 ~ 5500kg/cm 2 many materials can be cut through the high pressure water flow formed by the small diameter sapphire nozzle. | Many consumables, high operating costs, complex processes and low precision. |
V. Disadvantages of laser cutting
- Output power limitations: The cutting speed of laser cutting is slower than plasma arc cutting and is limited by the output power. This means that the cutting speed decreases as the thickness of the material being cut increases.
- Thickness limitations: Due to limitations in laser power and equipment size, laser cutting can only be used to cut medium and small thickness plates and tubes. As the thickness of the material to be cut increases, the cutting speed decreases significantly.
- High air consumption: Laser cutting requires a large amount of air during the cutting process.
- High equipment costs: The cost of laser cutting equipment is high, requiring a large one-time investment.
