On similarity laws for gas-laser cutting of thick steel sheets

摘要

One of the interesting and practically significant results of investigating the action of powerful laser radiation on a substance is te laser cutting of metals [1, 2]. Modern technological СО2 lasers allow one to cut sheets up to 30 mm thick [1, 4]. However, despite the large number of investigations, no complete and self-consistent physical picture of laser cutting has been developed until now [2–4]. The existing theo-retical models of gas-laser cutting render it impossi-ble to justify the interrelation of optimum cutting parameters and the law of their variation with the cut-material thickness.