Can high-power laser cutting machines be the future trend?
With the continuous development of heavy industry, laser cutting technology has developed from thin plate cutting to thick plate large size cutting, and laser cutting has gradually entered the era of high power. In the new era, industrial manufacturing has put forward new requirements for the accuracy, speed and thickness of sheet metal cutting, and the power that can be achieved by laser cutting machines is getting higher and higher. From the perspective of industrial development, high-power laser cutting machine is an inevitable product of a certain stage, and it is also the general trend of industry development.01Preamble
In the field of sheet metal processing, the advantages of laser cutting machine are very prominent. Because of its high precision, fast speed, good quality and other advantages, it has gradually replaced the traditional processing technology and become the core equipment of sheet metal cutting.[1]. From the rise of laser cutting machine, to fiber laser cutting machine to replace YAG, CO2Such as machines, and then to the continuous introduction of high-power laser cutting machines, for cutting thick plates and cutting efficiency, high-power equipment has become the general trend.
In recent years, high-power laser cutting machine has become a hot topic in the field of laser cutting, and many companies have continuously introduced fiber laser cutting equipment above 10,000 watts. For the sheet metal processing industry, the birth of high-power cutting equipment has greatly improved the thickness and efficiency of sheet metal cutting. The emergence of this high-power cutting machine, constantly breaking the limit of material cutting thickness. The resulting reduction in the price of processed thick plates, forming a good cycle, and promoting the further expansion of laser cutting applications.02Introduction of high power laser cutting machine
(1) Introduction of high-power cutting machine
Laser cutting machine can be divided into low power, medium power and high power according to power. For the general thickness of stainless steel and carbon steel, small power laser cutting machine can be good cutting. For cutting thick plates and cutting efficiency, high-power laser cutting machines can be achieved well. Therefore, laser cutting machines with laser power above 10,000 watts are collectively referred to as high-power laser cutting machines (see Figure 1).
(2) Specification of fiber laser power
According to the different thickness of laser cutting sheet metal, the selected fiber excitation on the high-power cutting machine
The power specifications of optical devices are also different. From the current development trend, in the metal processing market, large and medium-sized enterprises have gradually upgraded to a variety of specifications, as shown in Table 1.
(3) Specification of gas used
In the high-power laser cutting machine work, in order to ensure the accuracy of cutting, cutting speed, cutting section effect and many other advantages, the use of oxygen purity requirements are higher, the general requirements of the purity of 99.99.03Features of high power laser cutting machine
3.1 technology breakthrough
(1) High-speed cutting machine with high dynamic performance
The machine tool equipped with a 10,000-watt fiber laser adopts the new triangular structure beam, which has the following characteristics: ① weight reduction of 30% and obvious improvement of dynamic performance. The maximum moving speed can reach 200 m/min, and the acceleration is 4g dynamic response characteristics. The base increases the weight, about 20%, change the fixed way of the machine tool, and eliminate the impact of high acceleration motion on the machine tool.
(2) New software system
The software and control system is like the brain and command center of the machine tool. The accuracy and efficiency of the machine tool operation, in addition to the dividends brought by the hardware upgrade, the difference in the performance of the whole machine mainly comes from the difference of the software and control system, and often the difference is very large.
(3) can achieve stable cutting speed up to 100 m/min
① The response speed of the capacitive sensor is 3 times higher than that of the traditional cutting head. The Z-axis speed is increased, the operation is more smooth without pause, the thin plate cutting efficiency is increased by more than 30%, the efficiency of the leapfrog function is improved, and the acceleration adaptation function is improved. ③ Improve the functions of rapid perforation and precision perforation and remote diagnosis, and reserve the intelligent interface for the realization of the function of “industrial 4.0”.[2].
3.2 cutting head features
The high-power cutting head is the core component to ensure stable cutting under the condition of high-power continuous operation. It has the following characteristics: ① The high-power cutting head has a cooling system with better sealing and more sufficient cooling, a wider range of focus and high-temperature resistant lenses. The influence of high-power thermal lens effect, the cutting head in a long time of work, the beam will focus drift phenomenon occurs, in order to overcome the problem of focus drift, high-power cutting head adopts a new air design structure and replacement of the new structure of the nozzle, so as to improve the cutting speed and cutting stability.
3.3 high power laser cutting capability
(1) the thickness of the cutting plate is constantly increasing
At present, the thickness of aluminum alloy plate cut by high-power laser cutting machine can reach 40mm, and the thickness of stainless steel plate can reach 130mm. With the continuous upgrading of high-power laser cutting machine technology, the thickness of cutting material will continue to increase, and the price of processing thick plate will gradually decrease, and accelerate the application of high-power laser cutting machine in the field of thick plate[3].
(2) Multiplication of the efficiency of thin plates in cutting
When cutting stainless steel plates with a thickness of 3~10mm, the cutting speed of 10 000W laser cutting machine is more than twice that of 6000W. ② 10 000W laser cutting machine in carbon steel cutting applications, can reach 18~20 mm/s fast bright surface cutting, is twice the ordinary standard cutting speed. The carbon steel plate within 12mm can be cut with compressed air or nitrogen, and the cutting efficiency is 6 to 7 times of the speed of oxygen cutting carbon steel.
3.4 bed features
(1) The equipment is equipped with a super load-bearing mechanical structure
The high-power cutting machine is equipped with a cast iron bed, which is integrally cast with flake graphite cast iron with a minimum tensile strength of 200MPa. The carbon content, compressive strength, vibration damping and wear resistance are greatly improved (see Figure 3).
(2) the characteristics of cast iron bed
The bed has good lubrication performance, corrosion resistance and dimensional stability, reducing the machining error caused by the vibration of the bed. Reduce the loss of equipment in use, improve the stability coefficient by more than 30%, improve the quality accuracy by more than 30%, and improve the life of the bed by more than 70 years.
3.5 automatic nozzle replacement
(1) Manual nozzle replacement mode
The nozzle needs to be replaced according to the thickness and material of the cutting material during cutting. For many years, the nozzle has been replaced manually. This is not only inefficient, requires technical personnel to repeat labor, but also difficult to ensure the accuracy and stability after replacement. How to replace the nozzle efficiently and quickly, and ensure that each replacement is foolproof and maintain accuracy, is a technical problem in the field of laser cutting.
(2) Automatic nozzle replacement technology
The high-power laser cutting machine applies the function of automatic nozzle replacement. It can realize the automatic replacement of the nozzle, the calibration of the laser head, the automatic cleaning of the nozzle and other functions, reducing the amount of manual labor. The nozzle can be automatically replaced by operating the corresponding command on the touch screen. Automatic nozzle replacement technology has the following advantages
1) Reduce labor intensity and ensure positioning accuracy and working stability when replacing nozzles.
2) It is equipped with a complete control system, which can automatically replace the nozzle model and specifications according to different materials and different plate thicknesses, reducing the time for manual replacement, thereby improving production efficiency.
3) The automatic replacement nozzle is a fully enclosed protective device, which provides a good guarantee for the nozzle equipment and personal safety.
3.6 lightning perforation and limit hole forming
(1) Lightning perforation
The perforation time is short, the heat focusing energy is small, the starting point is stable, and the stability of the follow-up system can be maintained to ensure the best cutting effect. The advantages of lightning perforation are shown in Table 2.
(2) Limit hole
Laser cutting industry, has always believed that the thickness of the plate is the smallest diameter of the cutting hole, high-power laser cutting machine can achieve the smallest hole diameter of 0.15 times the thickness of the plate, or even smaller, as shown in Figure 4.04Advantages of high power laser cutting machine
(1) High speed
The laser cutting speed has exceeded 20 m/min, the two-axis moving speed of the cutting machine can reach 250 m/min, and the acceleration has reached about 10g during operation.
(2) High precision
A small hole of about 10mm in a 1mm thick plate can be cut at about 500 per minute. The error between these small holes during the cutting process is very small.
(3) to the thick plate direction
The power of high-power laser cutting machine is gradually increasing, and the size of the corresponding thick plate is also increasing.
(4) to develop in the direction of large size
The processing size range of laser cutting technology is also increasing, and laser cutting technology has begun to develop in the direction of large size.
(5) Automatic unmanned
The automatic unmanned laser cutting technology has the necessity and urgency of development. The application of computer network technology promotes the realization of automatic unmanned laser cutting technology. The market demand for the application of this technology is also increasing, prompting laser cutting technology to achieve fully automatic unmanned.
(6) Intelligent
In accordance with the technical requirements of industrial 4.0, keep up with the pace of intelligent manufacturing. Using accurate graphic recognition technology, simple operation process and convenient human-computer intelligent interaction, the laser is combined with computer control, numerical control technology, optical system, high precision and automatic positioning device, etc., which integrates automatic discharge, cutting process database, remote fault diagnosis and remote control to meet the needs of large-scale and complex parts processing.[3-4].
(1) Development of high-power equipment
Laser cutting, as a very ideal processing method in cutting processing, represents the development direction of modern metal processing technology. High-power laser cutting machine is also toward high-speed, high-precision, large format, three-dimensional cutting and special materials cutting and other areas of key technology research and development, so as to promote the development of high-power laser cutting technology to meet the growing market demand
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(2) High-power equipment selection
Some enterprises in the choice of high-power laser cutting equipment, the need to carefully consider: in addition to cutting speed and accuracy, especially to test the full power of continuous cutting stability and consistency, machine speed matching ability, machine tool control of advanced and precision life. You can’t simply compare price factors like buying low-power laser cutting equipment. High power means high investment, and high investment implies high risk. When entering this high return market, enterprises must realize its risk.