Laser cutting, laser marking and laser welding are relatively mature and extensive applications of lasers in the industrial field in recent years. Among them, laser cutting accounts for the largest proportion in industrial laser equipment,
Fifteen years ago, the sales volume of high-power lasers in China was low, and laser cutting had a long-term thickness limitation.
Traditionally, it is believed that flame cutting can cut the widest range of plate thickness, with obvious speed advantages above 50mm, and is suitable for processing thick and extra thick plates with low precision requirements; Plasma cutting has obvious speed advantage in the 30-50mm range, which is not suitable for processing particularly thin plates (<2mm); However, the kilowatt laser is mostly used for laser cutting, with obvious advantages in speed and accuracy below 10mm; Mechanical punch is between plasma and laser cutting.
In recent years, with the gradual popularization of high-power lasers, laser cutting equipment has begun to gradually penetrate the plate market. After the laser power is increased to 6 kW, it will continue to replace the mechanical punch with high cost performance.
Although the price of CNC punching machine is lower than that of laser cutting machine, the cutting quality of laser cutting machine is higher, and the fixed cost can be diluted by virtue of high production efficiency, the material and labor costs can be saved by virtue of high yield, and subsequent polishing is not required. The post-processing process is reduced, and its return on investment cycle and efficiency are significantly better than that of mechanical punching machine. It also opens the replacement of plasma cutting.
Now the 20,000 watt laser cutting machine has broken through the optimal cutting thickness of carbon steel and stainless steel to 50mm and 40mm respectively.
The steel plate is generally divided into thin plate, medium plate, thick plate and extra thick plate according to the thickness. Ten thousand watt level equipment has been able to complete the cutting of medium thin plate and most thick plates. The application scenario of laser cutting equipment continues to extend to the field of medium thick plate, reaching the thickness range of plasma cutting.
In addition to increasing the upper limit of cutting material thickness, laser cutting has narrower slits, higher flatness and improved cutting quality than plasma cutting. High power laser also makes cutting efficiency continuously improved.
The above is all about the optimization of high-power laser cutting machine to replace plasma cutting.