Product Code: ICA10_905

Quality of Remote Cutting
Authors:
Anssi Pihlava, Lappeenranta University of Technology; Lappeenranta
Tuomas Purtonen, Lappeenranta University of Technology; Lappeenranta Finland
Antti Salminen, Lappeenranta University of Technology; Lappeenranta
Veli Kujanpaa, Lappeenranta University of Technology; Lappeenranta
Lars Hartwig, University of Applied Sciences Mittweida Laser Application Centre; Mittweida Germany
Joerg Schille, University of Applied Sciences Mittweida Laser Application Centre; Mittweida Germany
Presented at ICALEO 2010

Remote cutting is stated to be a very fast laser cutting process when thin materials are being cut. As the main characteristics of remote cutting have been studied in past couple years, the quality of the cut is still not well compared and specified against other processes. Process parameters of remote cutting differ from the traditional laser cutting because of the multi-pass and vaporizing characteristics of the process. Process parameters and performance also vary depending on the used equipment and processed material. Parameters have to be optimized for each equipment to achieve the best cut quality.
Quality of laser cut kerf can be measured in various ways. In this study, various metals were processed using remote cutting. The quality of the cut kerfs were measured by surface roughness, perpendicularity tolerance, kerf width, 90 degree cut edge sharpness and burr height. The quality of the cut kerf is also compared to CO2 laser cutting and remote fusion cutting done with multimode fiber laser. When possible the comparison was carried out according to valid standard of thermal cutting.