FEATURE: CUTTING
CUT ABOVE FOR THICK PLATE PROCESSING
Greg Blackman discovers that new beam shaping technology is speeding up and improving the quality of thick plate laser cutting
Laser cutting machines are now very powerful pieces of equipment. Those for cutting thicker metals might reach 20kW or higher, and even machines primarily for thin sheet metal cutting can border on the 10kW mark. ‘Power is available and it’s getting cheaper,’ commented Dr Andreas Wetzig, business unit manager for laser ablation and cutting at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS. Power, however, isn’t everything, and now
work is ongoing to increase processing throughput by other means, for cutting thicker metals by beam shaping, and by machine automation in thin sheet metal
cutting. Fraunhofer IWS is working on R&D projects to develop beam shaping technology in order to improve the cutting efficiency, and therefore the speed, when cutting thick metal plates (‘thick’ is anything more than 4mm for the purposes of this article). ‘The goal is to use as much of the laser
power available as possible for the cutting process,’ explained Wetzig. ‘Ideally you would use 100 per cent of the available laser power; in reality you’re using less than 50 per cent without beam shaping.’ Under ideal conditions, Fraunhofer IWS
scientists have observed up to 50 per cent increase in speed by using beam shaping
technology, according to Wetzig. ‘It doesn’t mean that will always be the case, but you can increase up to 50 per cent in the best case,’ he clarified.
‘In our opinion, it’s better to put effort into beam shaping instead of raising the power of the laser,’ he added. The Fraunhofer IWS beam shaping
technology uses two single galvo-driven mirrors to move the laser beam very fast within the kerf width in x and y directions. The beam can be manipulated at frequencies of up to 4kHz. Fraunhofer IWS has worked with laser
system manufacturer Amada to build this technology into a commercial laser machine, which Amada first showed at Euroblech 2018. Amada’s Ventis machine is a 4kW solid-state laser cutter containing a cutting head that manipulates the beam in different patterns as it moves across the work piece, what Amada calls Locus Beam Control (LBC) technology. The optical unit can produce infinite beam patterns – which, depending on the pattern, improves cutting speed and quality for different materials and thicknesses.
12mm stainless steel cut on Amada’s Ventis machine, without Locus Beam Control (left) and with LBC turned on (right). 12 LASER SYSTEMS EUROPE SUMMER 2019 @LASERSYSTEMSMAG |
WWW.LASERSYSTEMSEUROPE.COM @researchinfo |
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Amada
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