Study of Thermal Deformation of a Base Material during Laser Cutting

Abstract

This paper deals with thermal deformation of a base material during laser cutting to avoid interruption in a long processing by the thermal deformation. The thermal deformation of a base material cut by laser beam was clarified experimentally. In experiment, the SUS304 sheets of 1mm in thickness were cut by several conditions, and we measured the residual heat, the flux of heat and the thermal deformation of cut sheets. In low-power and low-speed pulse beam cutting, both the residual heat and thermal deformation was lowest. In high-power and high-speed pulse laser cutting, the thermal deformation was larger than the deformation by CW laser cutting in which the residual heat was largest. It was clarified that the thermal deformation of the base material was influenced by flux of heat.