Experimental investigation on fiber laser cutting of aluminum thin sheets

The most extensively used lasers for aluminum and its alloys cutting, are CO2 and Nd:YAG operating in continuous wave and pulsed mode. High power solid state fiber lasers operating in continuous wave mode offer a great potential in improving the cut quality and productivity of highly reflective materials cutting process due to the better absorptivity of 1 mu m laser radiation. The high processing speeds of CW mode and a good cut quality could be achieved at the same time. In this work, cutting experiments were performed on A11050 1mm thick sheets using a fiber laser and Nitrogen as assist gas. A DOE approach that consists of fitting the regression models by means of response surface method (RSM) was adopted. The effects of cutting speed, focal position and assist gas pressure on dross height, kerf width and roughness parameters were investigated. Results showed that processing in CW with fiber laser increases the cutting speed and gives a cut quality comparable with results obtained with CO2 and Nd:YAG lasers and reported in literature.