b'IPG PhotonicsHigh-power lasers can give a big boost to steel-cutting speeds.Steel Beams Shine so cutting throughput does notexpensive. On the other hand, he scale up well with increasing lasernoted that cutting with high-pres-power, he said. So cut speed issure air offers the speed advantage iron in carbon steel. The laser is thelow with high-power lasers. of nitrogen cutting without its cost initiator of the reaction and a sup- In nitrogen cutting of carbondrawback. But to get a high-quality plementary heat source. steel, however, Sarrafi said cuttingcut in thick carbon steel with air, he Because of the extra oxidationspeed scales well with laser power,said users need high laser powerenergy, he said, you can cut aso carbon steel can be cut verytypically at least 8-kW.thicker section of carbon steel at afast with high-power lasers. But heHow much of a difference can the given laser power compared to ni- also pointed out that nitrogen ischoice of assist gas make in a laser trogen or air. cutting process? When cutting 16 Oxygen cutting also results incontributors mm (0.63") carbon steel with a high-a smooth cut edge, Sarrafi said,power laser, he said the speed of but it is oxidized heavily and theGF Machining Solutions LLC oxygen cutting remains at about heat-affected zone is much larger800-282-1336 2 m/min. (6.56\') when laser power than it would be in a nitrogen or airwww.gfms.com goes from 10-kW to 30-kW. But process. In addition, he noted thatIPG Photonics Corp. when air cutting at 30-kW, he said it is difficult to scale up the speed of877-980-1550 the speed is over 9 m/min. (29.53\'), an oxygen-cutting process, unlikewww.ipgphotonics.com more than four times faster than nitrogen- or air-cutting operations.cutting with oxygen.This is because oxygen cutting re- Marubeni Citizen-Cincom Inc. Ultrahigh-power lasers dramat-quires a certain ratio between en- 201-818-0100 ically increase the productivity of ergy input from oxidation and thatwww.marucit.com cutting thick carbon steel while from the laser. Trumpf Inc. using air keeps running costs low As a result, you cannot apply too860-255-6000 and yields good, dross-free cut much laser energy in this process,www.trumpf.com quality, Sarrafi said.20OCTOBER 2022 LaserMachining.indd 20 9/19/22 11:36 AM'