Laser Prepared Cutting Tools

Laser Cutting Theory

A laser can be used for cutting by exposing material to the intense heat energy developed by its beam. If that heat input to the material is greater than that material's ability to reflect, conduct, or disperse the added energy, it will cause a sudden rise in temperature of the material at that point. If the temperature rise is substantial enough, the input heat is capable of initialising a hol...

LASER CUTTING PARAMETERS The laser cutting parameters are dependent on the beam characteristics, the cutting rate

The laser cutting parameters are dependent on the beam characteristics, the cutting rate required, the composition and thickness of the material to be cut, and the desired cut edge quality. The laser cutting process and cut quality depend upon the proper selection of laser and workpiece parameters. Deficiencies in cutting quality may be related to the slow process drifts and disturbances that a...

Comparison of Cutting Ceramics with Hard Metal Cutting Tools

Cutting ceramic tools are used especially at high cutting speeds in the machining process. The highly brittle type of structure and the tendency for cleavage (crack formation) are the infavorable properties of these materials, which keep their hardness at high temperatures. The hard metals are produced by sintering of the carbides such as whisker WC, TiC and TaC with the presence of Co as a bin...

From Computer Calculations to Cutting Tools

Optical Flank Wear Monitoring of Cutting Tools

An optoelectronic method for in situ monitoring of the flank wear of cutting tools is presented. The method is based on real time vision technology in which the tool is illuminated by the beam of a laser and the wear zone is visualized using a Vidicon camera. The image is converted into digital pixel data and processed, to detect the wear land width. Detailed aspects of the image processing pro...