Experimental investigation of multi-mode fiber laser cutting on cement-based composites

Abstract

Laser-Aided Manufacturing has been used in numerous applications on metal alloys, composites materials, and bio-tissues with their various advantages over conventional method such as higher precision level, faster speed and non-contact method. Among the area of Laser-Aided Manufacturing, laser cutting has been widely used in many applications such as lithium-ion battery, electronic devices, automotive, ship-building, aircraft industries. In spite of its popularity and wide uses in various materials, relatively few applications in the cement-based construction materials are applied. This research focuses on the laser cutting of cement-based composites in order to systematically find adequate laser parameters. This study successfully applied multi-mode laser cutting on cement mortar with the variation of laser cutting speed. The effects of the amount of silica sand in cement mortar on laser cutting are tested and analyzed. The kerf width and penetration depth of the specimens are investigated. The penetration depth decreases for both cement paste and cement mortar as the laser cutting speed increases. Whereas, the kerf width becomes saturated and increases for cement paste and cement mortar, respectively. Physical characteristics such as re-solidification, burning, and crack are examined on the samples. The optical absorption rates of cement-based materials are quantified. Chemical composition variation before and after laser cutting is also compared with EDX analysis. Furthermore, the material removal mechanisms for cement mortar are proposed.