Aluminum is a rich metal, accounting for about 8% of the weight of the earth’s crust. Like brass, copper, silver and gold, it is a non-ferrous metal. Nonferrous metals refer to metals other than iron or steel.
Many of them have the characteristics of light weight and good conductivity. Aluminum is light, soft but durable, which makes it easy to cut or shape on a laser cutting machine.
Unlike iron or steel, aluminum has the function of rust and corrosion prevention. Due to the high flexibility of aluminum, the waste is usually the least, and any remaining waste can be recycled.
Cutting Methods
CO2 lasers or fiber lasers can be used to cut thin non-ferrous metal sheets. However, when cutting with CO2 laser, it is necessary to coat the material surface to avoid the reflected light from damaging the laser device. Fiber laser can be directly used for non-ferrous metal cutting.
Aluminum can be cut by various types of cutting machines, such as laser, plasma, waterjet or mechanical cutting machine.
Compared with traditional aluminum cutting machine, the main advantage of laser cutting machine lies in speed and quality, and its processed workpiece is smoother and defect free.
Advantages of laser cutting aluminuim
1. High precision
The laser cutting incision is narrow and smooth, and there is no fillet and common rough mouth of mechanical blanking; The heat affected zone, thermal stress and thermal deformation are small.
2. High efficiency
The laser cutting machine is non-contact processing, without the impact force during mechanical blanking, without the wear of tools and molds, without the tower edge during mechanical blanking. The workpieces are closely arranged, which can save 20% – 30% of the materials. The cutting is formed at one time without subsequent processing.
