The application of laser in cutting metal materials has been widely known, but many people do not know how to judge the quality of processing when using laser cutting machines. In fact, the cutting quality is usually judged from four angles: end surface roughness, bottom burr, verticality, and kerf width.
1. End Surface Roughness
When the laser cuts materials, affected by the airflow and feed speed, vertical (or inclined) lines will be formed on the end surface. The deeper the lines, the rougher the end surface, and the shallower the lines, the smoother the end surface. Roughness not only affects edge appearance, but also friction characteristics, so lower roughness means higher quality cuts. By adjusting parameters such as laser power, feed speed, focal length, auxiliary gas type and air pressure, the end surface roughness can be continuously optimized.
2. Bottom Burrs
The principle of laser cutting metal is to instantly vaporize the metal through the high energy of the laser, and blow away the slag on the surface of the workpiece through the auxiliary gas. However, in the actual processing process, factors such as thicker plates, insufficient air pressure, and mismatched feed speeds will cause some slag to form burrs after cooling and hang on the bottom of the workpiece. At this time, additional deburring work is required, which consumes extra man-hours. The burrs and dross on the bottom of the workpiece are very important criteria for judging the cutting quality.
3. Verticality
For sheet metal, the verticality of laser cutting is negligible, but when the thickness of the material exceeds 10mm, the verticality of the cutting edge is very important. As you move away from the focal point, the laser beam becomes divergent and the cut widens towards the top or bottom depending on the position of the focal point. The cutting edge deviates from the vertical line by a few hundredths of a millimeter, the more vertical the edge, the higher the cutting quality.
4. Cutting Seam Width
The width of the cutting slit is the embodiment of the processing accuracy, and usually does not affect the cutting quality. Only when a particularly precise outline or pattern needs to be formed inside the workpiece, the slit width will become an important indicator. The kerf width determines the minimum inside diameter of the profile. The smaller the kerf width, the more precise the contour and the smaller the hole diameter can be processed. This is also one of the important advantages of laser cutting instead of plasma cutting. However, as the thickness of the plate increases, the width of the kerf will inevitably increase. To ensure stable and high-precision cutting, it is necessary to ensure that the workpiece is stable in the processing area of the laser cutting machine.