Material scientists and engineers are constantly facing the challenge of developing new materials with improved physical and mechanical properties. At the same time the material production industries or material suppliers are facing the further challenge demanded by the manufacturing industries in cutting-off these materials just-in-time with such a finish of the cut surface, which does not require any secondary operations before going to manufacture into the final product at a competitive price. To satisfy these demands, production industries or stockholders have to find a suitable cutting-off method which can cut at high speed with good surface finish and keeping the waste of material (i.e., kerf loss) as low as possible. Today the metal stocks are cut-off in the material fabrication plants using chipping (handsaw, circular saw etc.) and chipless (laser, plasma etc.) methods. The paper reviews the currently used cutting-off methods, their developments and scope of newly developed processes in the materials industries.
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