Laser cutting requirements for sheet metal

Lasers do a good job of cutting plates, but not all plates can be cut. What are the key data of the sheet that affect the cutting?

The first is the flatness of the steel plate. Flat plate is helpful for laser cutting, because the laser cutting head has an automatic tracking function, as shown in Figure 1, the laser head can track the distance between the laser head and the plate according to ranging and keep it, so it is not necessarily very flat.

Figure 1  Plate Uneven

Then is the plate internal stress. First understand the stress: the object due to external factors (stress, humidity, temperature field changes, etc.) and deformation, in the object between the parts of the internal force interaction, to resist the effect of the external factors, and try to make the object from the position of the deformation to the position before the deformation. The internal forces per unit area at a point in a section are called stresses. Laser cutting when the workpiece from the edge of the plate, the workpiece after cutting the remaining plate narrow plate stress began to release, the plate will bounce, affecting the cutting line of the cutting head. At the same time because of the release of stress, the plate will also have a slight displacement, affecting the cutting size of the plate. Therefore, it is recommended to de-stress the plate before processing.

Finally is the carbon content, the level of carbon content directly affects the effect of cutting, cutting slag with higher carbon content is greater than the lower carbon content.

The above three points for the plate requirements directly affect the cutting effect.