With the development of science and technology, there are more and more cutting methods, such as: laser cutting, water cutting, plasma cutting, line cutting…what is the difference between them?
Listen to an engineer in the field of cutting, saying:
1) Now the mainstream fiber laser on the market, carbon dioxide laser is slowly phased out, and the power consumption is too high.
2) Now, fiber equipment has declined sharply in the low-medium power segment since the laser was manufactured.
3) In addition to other laser cutting methods, the market demand for cutting and line cutting is relatively large, but there are more mold industries for line cutting. .
4) In the future development, in the metal plate, it is definitely the world of laser cutting, including non-metallic cutting, and a large number of markets will be occupied by laser cutting.
Next, let’s analyze these cutting techniques.
Laser cutting processing
Light cutting is to use the focused high-power density laser beam to irradiate the workpiece to melt, vaporize, abuse or reach the burning point of the irradiated materials. CO2 pulse laser is generally used now and laser cutting is one of the hot cutting methods.
Treatment of water cuts
Water cutting, also known as water cutting, is pressure shooting technology, is a machine that uses high pressure water cutting. Under computer control, it can be carved arbitrarily and it is less affected by material texture. Water cutting is divided into two ways: sandless cutting and sand cutting.
Plasma cutting treatment
Plasma arc cutting is a method of treating molt (and evaporation) to the metal of the incision workpiece with the heat of the high temperature plasma arc to melt (and melt). evaporates) at the incision of the part.
Cable cutting processing
The wire electric discharge machine is called WEDM), which is a category of energy processing. Thread trimming can be divided into fast thread trimming, mid-thread trimming, and slow thread trimming. The cutting speed of grated spark wire is 6-12 m/s. Medium-spinning electric spark line cutting is a multi-frequency cutting function on the basis of rapid wire cutting, which is a new development process in recent years. The slow wire electric cutting speed is 0.2 m/s.
Scope
Laser cutting machines have a wide range of applications. Fiber laser cutting machines. The plate is deformed.
Water cutting is cold cutting, no heat deformation, good cutting surface quality, no secondary processing, if necessary, it is easy to carry out secondary processing. Water cutting can be pore and cut all materials, cutting fast cutting speed and flexible processing size.
Plasma cutting machines can be used to cut various metal materials such as stainless steel, aluminum, copper, cast iron and carbon steel.
Cutting the wire can only cut the conductive substance so the cutting coolant must be cut off during the cutting process. .
Comparison of cutting thickness
The application of laser carbon steel in industry is generally less than 20mm. The cutting capacity is generally less than 40mm. The stainless steel industry is generally less than 16mm, and the cutting capacity is generally less than 25mm. And as the thickness of the workpiece increases, the cutting speed decreases significantly.
The thickness of the water cut can be very thick, 0.8-100mm or even thicker materials.
The plasma cutting thickness is 0-120mm, and the best cutting quality range is the most cost-effective.
The thickness of the line cut is generally 40-60mm, and the thickest can reach 600mm.
Cutting speed comparison
Cut 2mm low carbon steel plate with laser with power of 1200W, and the cutting speed can reach 600cm/min; The cutting efficiency that can be achieved by the electrostatic flower line is generally 20-60 square millimeters/min, up to 300 square millimeters/minute;
The water cutting speed is quite slow and is not suitable for batch mass production.
The cutting speed of plasma cutting is slow, the relative precision is low, and it is more suitable for cutting thick plates, but the final surface has a slope.
For metal processing, line cutting has higher precision, but the speed is very slow.
Comparison of cutting accuracy
The laser cutting incision is narrow, the seam sides are parallel and vertical with the surface, and the size and precision of the cut parts can reach ±0.2mm.
Plasma can reach less than 1 mm.
Water cutting does not produce heat deformation, the accuracy is ±0.1mm.
The accuracy of line cutting is generally ±0.01~±0.02mm, and the maximum can reach ±0.004mm.
Seam width comparison
Laser cutting is more precise than plasma cutting, seams smaller, about 0.5mm.
Plasma cutting seams larger than laser cutting, about 1-2mm.
The water cut seam is about 10% larger than the diameter of the knife tube, generally 0.8-1.2mm. As the diameter of the sand knife tube expands, the larger the incision.
The width of the thread sewing cut is the smallest, generally about 0.1-0.2mm.
Comparison of cutting surface quality
The surface essence of laser cutting is not cut as well, the thicker the material, the more obvious the material.
Water cutting does not change the texture of the materials around the seam (laser is thermal cutting, which will change the texture around the cutting area).
Comparison of the cost of production inputs
1) Different models of laser cutting machines have different prices. Laser cutting has no consumables, but the equipment investment cost is the highest in all cutting methods, and it is not a little higher, and the maintenance cost is quite high.
2) Plasma cutting machine is much cheaper than laser cutting machine. , it can be cut.
3) The cost of water cutting equipment is only after laser cutting, high energy consumption, high usage maintenance costs and the cutting speed is not fast, because all abrasives are disposable.
4) Line cutting is usually around tens of thousands. But line cutting is consumable, molybdenum wire, coolant, etc. There are two types of wires commonly used in wire cutting, one is molybdenum wire (molybdenum is precious). -Line equipment, the disadvantage is that the copper wire can only be used once. In addition, the fast mobilization machine is much cheaper than the slow wire machine.
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