How to Reduce the Burr of Aluminum Plate in Fiber Laser Processing?

With the increasingly fierce market competition and the increasing market demand, aluminum products are widely used in the manufacturing industry, such as automotive parts, electronic products, precision hardware, mechanical equipment accessories and other industries.

Optical fiber laser processing machine plays an important role in efficient production of aluminum plate cutting.

So how to improve the section cutting quality of aluminum plate has become a topic of common concern.

Main influencing factors of burr in aluminum plate cutting

1. Main influencing factors of burr in aluminum plate cutting

Compared with CO2 laser, optical fiber has better concentration and narrow cutting gap.

Therefore, when processing, the air flow rate is high, and burr is easy to occur at the bottom of the material.

Carbon dioxide cutting machine is recommended for high cutting quality.

Table 1. laser beam characteristics

Classfication		Fiber laser	CO2 laser
		Solid state laser	Gas laser
Excitation media		Active optical fiber	Mixed gas (carbon dioxide, etc.)
Excitation origin		Semiconductor laser	Discharge
Wavelength		1.07μm (near infrared)	About 106μm (far infrared)
Concentrating property	Spot diameter	About 10μm	About 100μm
Vibration efficiency	Electrical efficiency	More than 30%	About 10%
	Electricity fees	High	Low
Generator structure		High fiber internal resonance (without reflector)	Refract with reflector
Laser transmission		Transmission fiber (without reflector)	Refract with reflector
Characteristic

2. Effect of generator output power on burr

According to the thickness of the plate, the burr of the aluminum plate can be reduced by reasonably selecting the power of the optical fiber vibrator.

Fig. 2 laser power and burr height

Table 2. Recommended thickness of aluminum plate for different optical fiber output power

3. Influence of processing gas type on burr of aluminum plate

The burr of aluminum plate processed by nitrogen is small, soft and easy to remove, but the operation cost is high.

The burr of air cutting is bigger than that of nitrogen, but it is hard to remove and the operation cost is low.

The burr of oxygen cutting is the biggest, which is not easy to use.

According to the quality requirements of the aluminum plate section, the processing gas should be selected reasonably.

Fig. 3 Comparison of processing gas types

4. Effect of machining gas flow on burr (nozzle height)

The burr can be reduced by reducing the height of the nozzle and increasing the gas flow when cutting the holes and corners. Return to normal nozzle height when cutting peripheral.

Cut small holes and corners to reduce nozzle height.

Aluminum plate: t 2.0mm

Fig. 4 quality comparison of changing nozzle height

5. The help of the latest processing head for aluminum plate processing

The zoom speed of the old-fashioned processing head is slow, so it is impossible to change the nozzle height at any time during the processing.

But the latest cutting head has fast zoom speed, and is able to maintain the set focus position thought the nozzle height changes.

The nozzle height can be changed to improve the burr of the aluminum plate.

Figure 5 new cutting head

Improvement of burr of the aluminum plate by mixed gas

We know from the above that the type of processing gas will affect the burr height, so what will be the effect of using an appropriate proportion of gas mixture?

Fig. 6 Effect of mixed gas purity on burr

The reasonable proportion of nitrogen and oxygen can greatly improve the burr problem of aluminum plate processed by fiber laser cutting machine.

Fig. 7 cross section comparison of mixed gas cutting aluminum plate

Wrap it up

This post introduces the main influencing factors and adjustment methods of burr in the daily production of aluminum plate processed by fiber laser cutting machine.

Hope to help you in the future for aluminum processing.