CO 2 laser cutting: analytical dependence of the roughness of the cut edge on the experimental parameters and process monitoring

Abstract

Over the last few years laser cutting has been widely introduced in industrial production lines, mainly due to the high processing speeds. In the present work a fundamental aspect of the cutting process of metals has been considered: the formation of periodic striations on the cut edge that greatly affects the quality of the treated samples. Therefore this paper is devoted to the study of the roughness of the cut surfaces with a particular attention to the dependence of this parameters on the working conditions. For a better understanding of the variables involved in the process, a comparison of the experimental data with the results of an analytical model has been performed. Furthermore a real time monitoring of the infrared emission coming from the interaction zone has been carried out by means of an electrooptic device properly developed for the measurements of the local temperature. A correlation between these data and the roughness measurements has been found.