Electric heating – Metal heating – By arc
Patent
1994-02-03
1995-08-22
Evans, Geoffrey S.
Electric heating
Metal heating
By arc
21912161, 36447408, B23K 2600
Patent
active
054442117
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a laser beam machine which executes a cutting operation by irradiating a laser beam onto a workpiece. In particular, the present invention relates to a laser beam machine wherein the material of workpiece is made of aluminum, brass, stainless steel and alloys of those, and an inert gas other than oxygen or an air is used as an assist gas to execute the cutting operation.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
Laser beam machines have been widely used for cutting metal. When metal is made of nonferrous metals such as aluminum, brass, or stainless steel, the machining condition for executing the cutting operation is modified when piercing the metal at the cutting start point, and when the cutting operation is executed. For example, an oxygen gas is used as an assist gas in piercing; on the other hand, an inert gas such as nitrogen gas is used as an assist gas in cutting.
However, these nonferrous metals are made of materials which are very difficult to be cut for the following reasons.
(1) These nonferrous metals have high reflectance with respect to a carbondioxide laser beam of a wavelength 10.6 .mu.m of; for this reason, piercing is difficult to execute at the cutting start point.
(2) It is difficult to readily remove dross (mass of melted metals) gathering at the lower portion of the cutting groove in a cutting operation.
(3) An inert gas or air is used as an assist gas in the cutting operation; for this reason, the depth of the cutting groove narrows.
These disadvantages make executing a cutting operation of nonferrous metals such as aluminum effectively and stably impossible, and cause cutting defects to occur frequently. For example, in the case where the cutting operation is executed by using a carbondioxide laser beam having an output of 3.0 KW, the limiting thickness, the maximum thickness at which machining can be stably executed regardless of the kind of material, is about 5 mm.
Particularly, the aforesaid cutting defects occur frequently when the operation is transferred from piercing to cutting at the machining start point. The thicker the material is, the more remarkably the aforesaid tendency appears. This results from the following reasons: an inert gas or air is mainly used as an assist gas in the cutting operation; for this reason, the cutting groove depth is narrow, and this influence is greatly shown when the operation is transferred from piercing to cutting.
On the other hand, in the case where the cutting operation is started directly from the outer-side end of the workpiece without executing a piercing operation at the machining start point, it has been found from experience that a workpiece having considerable thickness can be stably cut.
SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION
The present invention has been made in view of such a situation. An object of the present invention is to provide a laser beam machine which effectively and stably executes an operation for cutting nonferrous metals, such as aluminum, having a considerable thickness.
To solve the above problems, the present invention provides a laser beam machine which executes a cutting operation by irradiating a laser beam onto a workpiece. The laser beam machine of the present invention comprises piercing command means which executes a piercing operation at the machining start point of the aforesaid cutting operation according to a first machining condition, an enlargement processing command unit which executes an enlargement processing for enlarging a depth of a cutting groove directly after the aforesaid piercing operation is completed, according to a second machining condition, and a cutting command unit which executes a cutting operation after the aforesaid enlargement processing of the depth of the cutting groove is completed, according to a third machining condition.
The piercing command unit executes a piercing operation at the cutting start point according to the first machining condition. The enlargement processing command unit executes the enlargement processing of t
REFERENCES:
patent: 4914599 (1990-04-01), Seki et al.
patent: 4937422 (1990-06-01), Nagamine et al.
patent: 4945207 (1990-07-01), Arai
patent: 5012069 (1991-04-01), Arai
patent: 5252805 (1993-10-01), Nakata et al.
Mori Atsushi
Nakata Yoshinori
Evans Geoffrey S.
Fanuc Ltd.
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