With the development of technology, there are more and more cutting methods, such as: laser cutting, water cutting, plasma cutting, wire cutting …… What is the difference between them?
Listen to an engineer engaged in the field of cutting this way:
- Now the market mainstream fiber laser, carbon dioxide laser slowly eliminated, energy consumption is too high, in the field of non-metal or market.
- In addition to laser cutting other cutting methods, plasma and wire cutting market demand is relatively large, but wire cutting for the mold industry more, plasma in the case of thick plates or precision requirements are not high demand more, waterjet cutting is now uncommon in the metal industry, in the non-metallic field there are many.
- in the future development, in the metal in the thin plate is definitely the world of laser cutting, including non-metallic cutting will also be laser cutting to occupy a significant portion of the market.
Laser Cutting Processing
Optical cutting is the use of focused high power density laser beam irradiation workpiece, so that the irradiated material quickly melted, vaporized, ablation or reached the ignition point, at the same time, with the help of coaxial with the beam of high-speed airflow blowing off the molten material, so as to achieve the workpiece cut. Now generally use CO2 pulsed laser, laser cutting belongs to one of the thermal cutting methods.
Waterjet Cutting Processing
Waterjet cutting, also known as waterjet, or high-pressure water jet cutting technology, is a machine that utilizes a high-pressure stream of water to cut. It can carve workpieces arbitrarily under the control of a computer and is little affected by the texture of the material. Waterjet cutting is divided into two ways: abrasive-free cutting and abrasive cutting.
Plasma Cutting Processing
Plasma arc cutting is a processing method that uses the heat of a high-temperature plasma arc to locally melt (and evaporate) the metal at the workpiece kerf, and uses the momentum of the high-speed plasma to exclude the molten metal to form the kerf.
Wire Cut Electrical Discharge Machining
Wire Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM for short), belongs to the category of electrical machining, Wire cut Electrical Discharge Machining (WEDM for short), sometimes also known as wire cutting. Wire cutting can be divided into fast walking wire cutting, medium walking wire cutting, slow walking wire cutting. Fast walking wire EDM wire cutting speed of 6 to 12 m / s, the electrode wire for high-speed back and forth movement, cutting accuracy is poor. Medium-wire EDM wire cutting is a new process developed in recent years to realize the function of frequency conversion and multiple cutting on the basis of fast-wire wire cutting. Slow walking wire EDM wire cutting wire walking speed of 0.2m / s, the electrode wire for low-speed unidirectional movement, cutting precision is very high.
1. Comparison of application range
Laser cutting machine has a wide range of applications, whether metal, non-metal, can be cut, cutting non-metal, such as fabric, leather, etc. can be used CO2 laser cutting machine, cutting metal can be used fiber laser cutting machine. Plate deformation is small.
Water cutting belongs to cold cutting, no thermal deformation, good quality cutting surface, no secondary processing, such as the need for secondary processing is also very easy. Water cutting can punch and cut any material, fast cutting speed and flexible processing size.
Plasma cutting machine can be used for stainless steel, aluminum, copper, cast iron, carbon steel and other metal materials cutting, plasma cutting has obvious thermal effects, low precision, cutting surface is not easy to secondary processing.
Line cutting is only able to cut conductive substances, cutting process requires cutting coolant, so to paper, leather and other non-conductive, afraid of water, afraid of cutting coolant pollution of the material can not be cut.
2. Cutting Thickness Comparison
Laser cutting carbon steel in industrial applications is generally 20mm or less. Cutting capacity is generally 40mm or less. Stainless steel industrial applications are generally below 16mm, the cutting capacity is generally below 25mm. And with the increase in the thickness of the workpiece, the cutting speed decreases significantly.
Water cutting thickness can be very thick, 0.8-100mm, even thicker materials.
Plasma cutting thickness of 0-120mm, the best cutting quality range thickness of about 20mm plasma system is the most cost-effective.
Wire cutting thickness is generally 40-60mm, up to 600mm thick.
3. Cutting speed comparison
With a power of 1200W laser cutting 2mm thick mild steel plate, cutting speed of up to 600cm/min; cutting 5mm thick polypropylene resin plate, cutting speed of up to 1200cm/min. EDM wire cutting can achieve the cutting efficiency is generally 20 ~ 60 square millimeters / min, up to 300 square millimeters / min; obviously, the laser cutting speed, can be used for Mass production.
Water cutting speed that is quite slow, not suitable for batch mass production.
Plasma cutting is slow, relatively low precision, more suitable for cutting thick plates, but the end face has a slope.
For the processing of metal, wire cutting has higher precision, but the speed is very slow, sometimes need to use other methods in addition to piercing, threading to cut, and cutting size is very limited.
4. Comparison of cutting accuracy
Laser cutting kerf is fine and narrow, the two sides of the kerf are parallel and perpendicular to the surface, and the dimensional accuracy of the cut parts can reach ± 0.2mm.
Plasma can reach within 1mm.
Water cutting will not produce thermal deformation, accuracy of ± 0.1mm, if the use of dynamic water cutting machine can improve the cutting accuracy, cutting accuracy of up to ± 0.02mm, to eliminate the cutting skew.
Wire cutting processing accuracy is generally ± 0.01 ~ ± 0.02mm, up to ± 0.004mm.
5. Comparison of cutting width
Laser cutting compared to plasma cutting is more precise, the cut seam is small, in about 0.5mm.
Plasma cutting slit is larger than laser cutting, in 1-2mm or so.
Water cutting kerf is about 10% larger than the diameter of the pipe, generally in the 0.8-1.2mm. with the diameter of the abrasive knife pipe flare, the larger the kerf.
Line cutting the minimum width of the slit, generally in the 0.1-0.2mm or so.
6. Cutting surface quality comparison
Laser cutting surface roughness is not as good as water cutting, the thicker the material the more obvious.
Water cutting does not change the texture of the material around the cutting seam (laser is a thermal cutting, will change the texture around the cutting area).
Production input cost comparison:
- laser cutting machine models for different purposes have different prices, cheap such as carbon dioxide laser cutting machine as long as two or three million, expensive such as 1000W fiber laser cutting machine is now more than one million. Laser cutting is no consumables, but the investment cost of equipment is the highest of all cutting methods, and not a little higher, the use of maintenance costs are also quite high.
- plasma cutting machine relative to the laser cutting machine is much cheaper, according to the power of the plasma cutting machine, brand, etc., the price varies, the use of high cost, basically as long as the ability to conductive materials can be cut.
- water cutting equipment costs second only to laser cutting, high energy consumption, the use of maintenance costs are also higher, the cutting speed is not as fast as plasma, because all the abrasives are disposable, used once discharged into the nature, and therefore bring the environmental pollution is also more serious.
- Wire cutting is usually around tens of thousands of dollars. But wire cutting is a consumable, molybdenum wire, cutting coolant and so on. Wire cutting commonly used in two kinds of wire, one is molybdenum wire (molybdenum can be expensive ah), used for fast-wire equipment, the advantage is that the molybdenum wire can be reused many times; the other is to use copper wire (anyway, much cheaper than molybdenum wire), used for slow-wire equipment, the disadvantage is that the copper wire can only be used once. In addition, the fast walking machine is far cheaper than the slow walking machine, the price of a slow walking machine is equal to 5 or 6 sets of fast walking machine.
This article provides a detailed comparison of laser cutting, waterjet cutting, plasma cutting, and wire EDM in terms of their technical characteristics, application ranges, cutting thicknesses, speeds, accuracies, kerf widths, and surface qualities to help you choose the most suitable cutting method.
