摘要
Metal laser cutting belongs to mature laser material processing technologies in industry applications. However, without understanding of the mechanism underlying the overall process, the improvement of the cutting quality is restricted. In this paper, an instantaneous melt removal model is presented to describe the process of material removal and striation formation. In the temperature field calculation, melted metal layer is removed when it grows to an assumed thickness. The effects of cutting parameters including cutting speed, gas pressure and laser power on the shape of striation are discussed. A novel method of getting striation free cutting surface is presented. Finally, laser cutting experiments of mild steel is conducted to validate the model. The striation variation trend can be well predicted by the model presented here and the disagreement may be caused by the coupling effect of cutting speed and critical thickness value.
Metal laser cutting belongs to mature laser material processing technologies in industry applications. However, without understanding of the mechanism underlying the overall process, the improvement of the cutting quality is restricted. In this paper, an instantaneous melt removal model is presented to describe the process of material removal and striation formation. In the temperature field calculation, melted metal layer is removed when it grows to an assumed thickness. The effects of cutting parameters including cutting speed, gas pressure and laser power on the shape of striation are discussed. A novel method of getting striation free cutting surface is presented. Finally, laser cutting experiments of mild steel is conducted to validate the model. The striation variation trend can be well predicted by the model presented here and the disagreement may be caused by the coupling effect of cutting speed and critical thickness value.
