Experimental Investigation of Industrial Laser Cutting: The Effect of the Material Selection and the Process Parameters on the Kerf Quality

Laser beam cutting is a non-contact, production-flexible and highly productive technique that allows accurate profiling of a wide range of sheet materials. To these and further benefits, laser machining is increasingly being adopted by industry. This paper investigates the effect of material type, workpiece thickness, cutting speed and assistant gas pressure on cut quality for industrial-relevant applications using a CO2 laser. AlMg3 aluminum alloy, St37-2 low-carbon steel and AISI 304 stainless steel were selected to represent the most established materials in many industrial fields and gain insight into different processes (i.e., inert-assisted fusion cutting and oxygen cutting) and absorption behaviors with respect to CO2 laser wavelength. The aim was to enhance the understanding of the mechanisms through which laser cutting parameters and workpiece parameters interact in order to identify general criteria and well-optimized process parameters which guarantee the kerf quality. The quality of laser cut was analyzed in its basic terms: kerf geometry, surface roughness and cut edge quality. The experiments were performed by using a systematic experimental design approach based on Design of Experiments, and the results were validated via Analysis of Variance. Quality assessment was presented and discussed. The visual inspection of cut sections confirms good overall quality and limited presence of laser cut imperfections. The experimental investigation demonstrates that the different materials can be successfully processed within a wide range of the tested values. In addition, optimum cutting conditions which satisfy the straight requirement of the quality standard adopted are identified for each material. This study involves an analysis of both phenomenological and practical issues.