EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS & PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF HIGH-PRESSURE NOZZLE ASSEMBLY FOR LASER CUTTING OF THICK CARBON STEEL PLATES

Abstract

Laser cutting of carbon steel is widely used in various steel fabricating industries because of its high speed, low
bleeding and high quality benefits. Currently, a 1 kW CO2 laser with a subsonic nozzle assembly can only be used to
cut steel plates up to about 10 mm. In this article, we are aiming at designing and evaluating high pressure
supersonic laser cutting nozzle assembly. This makes it possible to cut steel up to 100 mm with a 1 kW CO2 laser.
To design supersonic nozzle assemblies, basic equations of gas dynamics and compressible flow were used. The flow
of the high pressure gas jet in the nozzle assembly was investigated by practical performance and the structural
integrity of the high pressure nozzle assembly was guaranteed using analysis. Nozzle assembly can be tilting its 50%
of the draft either side of require cutting plates, whether it is inside or outside the profile. Laser cutting experiments
were conducted using supersonic nozzle assemblies developed to demonstrate low carbon steel cutting with a
thickness of 50 mm with 1-kW CO2 laser.