Sheet Metal Laser Cutting Guide

What is Sheet metal laser cutting?

Sheet metal laser cutting is a popular process in sheet metal fabrication.  Sheet metal laser cutting is a precision process which cut metal sheet to required shape by laser. Compared with other methods, laser cutting has high cutting quality (cut width 0.1-0.5mm), good roughness of cut surface(Ra 12.5-25 mm), high precision(The tolerance of general hole center distance is 0.1--0.4mm, and the tolerance of contour size is 0.1--0.5mm), the joint-cutting can be welded directly and needn’t further processing. The speed of laser cutting is very fast. For example, the cutting speed is 160cm/min on 8mm thickness carbon steel if the power of laser cutter is 2000w. And it will be 350cm/min on 2mm thickness stainless steel. The thermal affect area is small and the deformation is also extremely light.

Laser Cutting Process

How laser cutting works?

Sheet metal laser cutting is working by  irradiating the focused high-energy and high-density laser beam to the workpiece, and make the irradiated material molten, vaporized, ablated. Meanwhile, the high speed airflow will blow away the molten material, and realize the cutting on the workpiece.

Laser Cutting 

What is the advantage of laser cutting?

Comparing with other thermal cutting method, the sheet metal laser cutting has high cutting speed and high quality. The specific advantages are listed as below.

1. Good cutting quality.

Sheet metal laser cutting can obtain better cutting quality due to its’ small laser spot, high density of energy and high cutting speed.

A. The cut of sheet metal laser cutting is very thin and narrow, the two sides of kerf is parallel to each other and perpendicular to the surface, which enable the precision of cutting parts to reach  ±0.05mm.

B. The roughness of cutting surface is just dozens mm, which is very clean and beautiful. The parts can even be used directly after laser cutting, as sheet metal laser cutting could be the last process and needn’t further mechanical processing.

C. The width of thermal affect area is small when the material was cut by laser, the material properties nearby the joint-cutting is almost free from the affect. Meantime, the workpiece has tiny deformation, high cutting precision and good geometry cutting shape. The cross section of kerf will present regular rectangle.

2. High cutting efficiency

The whole cutting process can be controlled by the numerical system due to the special transfer property of laser, and the sheet metal laser cutter can be installed with several numerical control work platforms. When operating, the laser cuter can suit for different shapes of parts by change the programme of numerical system, which can realize cutting on both two dimensions and three dimensions.

3. High cutting speed.

The cutting speed can reach 600cm/min when cutting 2mm thickness plain carbon plate by the 1200w power laser cutter. And the cutting speed can reach 1200cm/min when cutting polypropylene (PP) plate with 5mm thickness. Laser cutting can save both the cost of jig and the time of load and download the workpiece, as the material needn’t be clamped and fixed when laser cutting.

4. Non-contact cutting

There is no wear of tool as the cutting blowpipe has no contact with the workpiece when laser cutting. The tool needn’t be changed, but change the output parameter of laser when process different shapes of parts. The process of sheet metal laser cutting is very quite, vibrating lightly and free of pollution.

5. Variety of available cutting materials

Comparing with other cutting methods like oxyacetylene cutting and plasma cutting, laser cutting has more available materials. Such as metal, non-metal, metal-base and non-metal base compound materials, lather, wood and fiber etc.

Sheet Metal Laser Cutting 

What is the limitation of sheet metal laser cutting?

The sheet metal laser cutter can cut the medium or thin thickness plates and tubes only, due to the limitation of the laser power and the size of equipment. And the cutting speed will drop obviously along with the increasing of the workpiece width. The cost of laser cutting equipment is huge, which means that the considerable money need invested in one time.

What’s the application of laser cutting?

Laser cutting is widely used in the sheet metal fabrication industry. Most of the laser cutter are controlled and operated by the numerical system or the cutting robot. As one precision processing method, laser cutting can cut almost all kinds of materials, consist of the metal cutting on two dimensions or three dimensions.

In the automotive manufacturing area, the space curve cutting technology of  car window and top cover has already been widely used.

In the aerospace field, laser cutting technology is mainly used for cutting special aviation materials, such as titanium alloys, aluminum alloys, nickel alloys, chromium alloys, stainless steel, beryllium oxide, composite materials, plastics, ceramics and quartz, etc. The aerospace parts processed by laser cutting include engine flame tube, titanium alloy thin-walled casing, aircraft frame, titanium alloy skin, wing truss, tail siding, helicopter main rotor, space shuttle ceramic heat insulation tile, etc.

sheet metal laser cutting