Laser technology has developed rapidly now and has become a significant cutting technology. In industrial production, laser cutting accounts for over 70% of laser machining and is the most critical application technology in the laser machining industry. With the increasing demands on machining accuracy and the rising prices of raw materials all over the world, attention is being paid to reducing energy costs and high efficiency and high precision laser devices.
According to different laser generators, the current market can be divided into three types: CO2 laser cutting machine, YAG (solid) laser cutting machine, fiber laser cutting machine.
With the development of modern science, fiber laser machines are now taking the leading role in laser marking technologies. Fiber laser cutting technology has been used in the finishing manufacturing process and has brought new opportunities and momentum to the rapid development of the finishing manufacturing industry.
The fiber laser cutting technology has been widely applied in the cutting industry due to its perfect cutting quality, high dimension accuracy and small heat influence area. At the same time, it has precision manufacturing, flexible cutting, heterogeneous type processing, once shaping, speed and higher efficiency, so in industrial production in solving many conventional methods can not solve the problem.
Fiber Laser principle
Fiber System Composition
Fiber laser precision cutting system is mainly composed of industrial computer, controller, table, light guide system, servo system and so on. The industrial laser computer controls the laser, servo system and moving platform to move the workpiece precisely, the laser periodically sends out pulses, and the laser focusing system makes fast, non-contact cuts to the workpiece.
Characteristics
Fiber laser cutting is now actively replacing older types of laser cutting – gas and crystal. For all the advantages of those technologies over past types of cutting, they also had disadvantages. Fiber lasers have helped to get rid of those drawbacks.
In a fiber laser, the beam passes, amplified, through a unique glass fiber doped with rare-earth elements – and out of it bursts to the desired point. Fiber laser is a pumping substance doped into the optical fiber，when the pump light through an optical fiber in rare-earth ions will be absorbed by the rare-earth ions. Then the rare-earth atoms absorbed photon energy electrons excited to a higher energy level lasing, enabling ion inversion, the number of ion-inverted form of radiation will be transferred from the high energy level to the ground state, and the release of energy, completed by stimulated emission of radiation. Laser fiber laser welding machine produced by the optical output, through the computer control of CNC mechanical system to move the spot irradiation position and achieve automatic punching.
Advantages of Fiber Laser
Efficiency advantages
Due to the high beam quality and high cutting efficiency, fiber laser can quickly process thinner or medium-thick materials and also enables faster and easier cutting of diverse and multi-shaped materials. Fiber laser cutting speed is 2 to 3 times faster than the same power CO2 laser cutter when cutting thin plates. When cutting materials to 6mm thick, the rate of a 1.5kW fiber laser cutter is comparable to that of a 3kW CO2 laser cutter. This not only saves manufacturing time but also saves materials.
Cost advantage
The conversion efficiency between optical and electrical energy is high, and the conversion rate between fiber laser electrical energy and optical energy can reach 30%, which significantly reduces energy consumption and reduces operating costs. Fiber laser cutting consumes low-cost ，moreover, its operation and maintenance costs are low. Fiber laser cutting machine fiber transmission, no complex light reflector system, simple optical path, stable structure, no maintenance outside the optical path, and there is basically no consumables. Costly optical mirrors are not needed, as is the case with other laser technologies. Also, the focusing lens is not exposed but instead sealed within the cutting head.
Equipment advantages
Fiber laser transmits laser light through the optical fiber. No need to adjust the light path, the mechanical system and the cutting system can be connected together very simply and tightly—simple operation. After a simple training can be used, so convenient.
Conclusion
As an advanced sheet metal processing technology and means, laser cutting machine with its high efficiency, high precision, high flexibility and other significant advantages in various industries of industrial machinery is rapidly and widely adopted, but also by more and more industry applications of concern. Some people may ask, laser cutting machine after more than 40 years of continuous development, has become increasingly mature, so how will it develop in the future? What is its development trend?
As high-precision CNC laser cutting machine tools, laser cutting machines will certainly keep pace with the times and the technology to fly together. The development of automation of laser cutting machine has greatly enhanced the production capacity of sheet metal workshop and automation level in the future. On this basis, the laser cutting intelligent machine era is deep development in the field of network technology, communication technology, computer software technology.