Laser cutting technology is a comprehensive high-tech technology, which spans the disciplines of optics, material science and engineering, mechanical manufacturing, numerical control technology and electronic technology. In the past 50 years, laser processing technology and applications have developed rapidly and combined with multiple disciplines to form multiple technical application fields. The main processing technologies of laser include: laser cutting, laser welding, laser marking, laser drilling, laser heat treatment, laser rapid prototyping, laser coating, etc.
Laser cutting has been widely used in modern industry for its advantages of wide cutting range, fast cutting speed, narrow slit, good cutting quality, small heat-affected zone, and high elasticity, and laser cutting technology has also become a kind of laser processing. technology. Compared with other light, laser has the following characteristics: high brightness, high directivity, high monochromaticity, high coherence. It is precisely because the laser has these four characteristics that it has been widely used, which brings the following valuable characteristics to laser processing that traditional processing does not have.
(1) Since it is non-contact processing, and the energy and moving speed of the laser beam can be adjusted, various processing can be realized.
(2) It can be used to process various metals and non-metals, especially materials with high hardness, high brittleness and high melting point.
(3) There is no “tool” wear during laser processing, and no “cutting force” acts on the workpiece.
(4) The heat affected zone of the workpiece processed by the laser is small, the thermal deformation of the workpiece is small, and the subsequent processing volume is small.
(5) The laser can process various workpieces in a closed container through a transparent medium.
(6) The laser is easy to guide. It is easy to cooperate with the CNC system to process complex workpieces by focusing. Therefore, laser cutting is an extremely flexible cutting method.