Title

Cutting performance of a chemical oxygen-iodine laser on aerospace and industrial materials

Authors

Authors

A. Kar; D. L. Carroll; W. P. Latham;J. A. Rothenflue

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

J. Laser Appl.

Keywords

laser cutting; materials processing; aerospace materials; chemical; oxygen-iodine laser; COIL; OPERATION; Materials Science, Multidisciplinary; Optics; Physics, Applied

Abstract

A chemical oxygen-iodine laser (COIL) was used for cutting aluminum, titanium, inconel and copper plates. The laser was operated with a stable resonator having an intracavity aperture to produce a circular COIL beam with very few transverse modes. The multimode focal spot diameter was calculated and measured to be approximately 0.24 mm. The new aluminum cut was of good kerf edge quality. These COIL cutting data are compared with an existing theoretical laser cutting model. Using thermophysical data for aluminum, titanium, inconel and copper, this theory agrees very well with the data. To test the versatility of the model, the effects of different assumptions are examined; different assumptions produced very little effect on model predictions at high cutting speeds and a small difference at very slow cutting speeds. Overall, the theoretical model provides good agreement with experiments for a wide variety of metals. (C) 1999 Laser Institute of America. [S1042-346X(99)00103-5].

Journal Title

Journal of Laser Applications

Volume

11

Issue/Number

3

Publication Date

1-1-1999

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

119

Last Page

127

WOS Identifier

WOS:000082934900003

ISSN

1042-346X

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