Steel Cutting » laser cutting features

Cutting Steel with Laser

admin — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:45:35 +0000

General idea of laser steel cutting works by forced amplification of light emmision. Laser machining operates by highly concentrated and amplified light beam. Condensation of power is between 10^8 and 10^14 W/m2 on surface. Next, the enegry of photons within a laser beam is converted into very hot heat which burns or melts down and evaporates machined material (steel sheets for example). Laser machining usually utilises gas lasers (carbon dioxide lasers CO2). With laser cutting we can distinguish some special features like: cutting without direct contact of header with cutted surface; no horizontal force is needed to move through cutted material (but we need precise speed regulation to archieve proper results instead); high speed of laser cutting process with narrow area affected by generated heat (reduced tension and deformations); high precision with level around 10^-3 mm order of magnitude; quiet and smooth running process; full automation; not loosing cutting parameters caused by hardware wearing mechanical contact with steel.
Energy of the laser beam is deployed to cut flat steel blocks and steel sheets placed in 3D space using holders, for drilling holes in hard materials with high accuracy and precision, welding or melting materials and many more practical usages. Cutting flat steel shets by numerically controlled laser machines (CNC) gives quick cutting speed with repeatable and high quality features of manufactured products.

Laser cutting advantages

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:38:42 +0000

There are many advantages of cutting steel by laser so we mention just the most important things seen by customer’s eye.

fastest method for metal elements development – In most cases, elements deployed from laser cutting machine are ready to use or montage right after cutting without further machining or processing, even polishing.
narrow area affected by laser temperature – high focus of laser beam on operating area significantly limits side effects of high temperature. Thanks to that the structural features of steel are not changed by temperature (no crispness increase)
minimize wastes – computer programmed track of laser movement (CNC) allow to maximize usage of material which can compensate higher cutting costs (in comparison to classic ways of cutting steel). Useless trash and wasted material can be reduced to minimum.
repetitiveness of cutting process – laser header (lens) operates without physical contact with cutted material. Thanks to that there are no deterioration effect of cutting header during the process. In conjunction with computer steering, we can receive same looking elements with exact same features during the process and between succeeding production stages.
laser cutting machines are great for singular, unique products and high number series production. It’s easy to make project on computer screen, test ready product, and make quick corrections if there are any required.