Laser cutting of lightweight alloys sheets with 1μm laser wavelength

High power fiber laser sources, with a radiation wavelength equal to about 1 μm, offer a great potential in improving the productivity and quality of thin aluminum, magnesium and titanium alloys sheets cutting. This is due to their benefits that are of special interest for this application: power efficiency, beam guidance and beam quality. In this work, an overview regarding the phenomena that for different reasons affect the laser cutting of these materials was given. These phenomena include the formation of a heat affected zone, the chemical contamination, the change of corrosion resistance, the thermal reactivity, the effects of thermal conductivity, reflectivity and viscosity of molten material. The influence of processing parameters on 1 mm thick Al 1050, AZ31 and Ti6Al4V lightweight alloys were experimentally investigated and cutting performances in terms of cut quality, maximum processing speeds and severance energies were evaluated. The advantages of using 1 μm laser wavelength for thin sheets lightweight alloys cutting due to the good cut quality, high productivity and the easily delivery of the beam through the optical fiber, were demonstrated. Results showed that fiber lasers open up new solutions for cutting lightweight alloys for applications like coil sheet cutting, laser blanking, trimming and cutting-welding combination in tailor welded blanks applications. © (2013) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.