1. Roughness
The laser cutting section will form vertical lines, and the depth of the lines determines the roughness of the cutting surface. The shallower the lines, the smoother the cutting section. Roughness not only affects the appearance of the edge, but also affects the friction characteristics. In most cases, it needs to be reduced as much as possible, so the shallower the texture, the higher the cutting quality.
2. Verticality
If the thickness of the sheet metal exceeds 10mm, the perpendicularity of the cutting edge is very important. When away from the focus, the laser beam becomes divergent, and the cutting becomes wider towards the top or bottom according to the position of the focus. The cutting edge deviates from the vertical line by a few percent. The more vertical the edge is, the higher the cutting quality is.
3. Cutting width
Generally speaking, the cutting width does not affect the cutting quality. Only when a particularly precise contour is formed inside the part, the cutting width has an important influence, because the cutting width determines the minimum inner diameter of the contour. When the thickness of the plate increases, the cutting width also increases. Therefore, in order to ensure the same high precision, no matter how wide the notch is, the workpiece should be constant in the processing area of the laser cutting machine.
4. Striation
When cutting thick plates at high speed, molten metal will not appear in the notch below the vertical laser beam, but will spray out at the back of the laser beam. As a result, the curved lines are formed at the cutting edge, and the lines closely follow the moving laser beam. In order to correct this problem, reducing the feed rate at the end of the cutting process can greatly eliminate the formation of lines.
5. Burr
Burr formation is a very important factor that determines the quality of laser cutting. Because burr removal requires additional work, the severity and amount of burr can directly judge the quality of cutting.
6. Material deposition
The laser cutting machine touches a layer of special oil-bearing liquid on the surface of the workpiece before melting and piercing. During the cutting process, due to gasification and the use of various materials, the customer uses the wind to blow away the incision, but the upward or downward discharge will also form deposits on the surface.
7. Pitting and corrosion
Dents and corrosion have an adverse effect on the surface of the cutting edge and affect the appearance. They appear in cutting errors that should normally be avoided.
8. Heat affected area
In laser cutting, the area near the incision is heated. At the same time, the structure of the metal changes. For example, some metals harden. The heat affected area refers to the depth of the area where the internal structure changes.
9. Deformation
If cutting causes the part to heat up sharply, it will deform. This is particularly important in fine machining, because the outline and connecting piece here are usually only a few tenths of a millimeter wide. Controlling laser power and using short laser pulses can reduce component heating and avoid deformation.
Source: Pentium smart
