What Makes Air-Assisted Laser Cutting A Popular Choice

The majority of laser cutting in Toronto involves the use of assist gas, particularly oxygen and nitrogen. If you have a significant application for this cutting technology, then you also have to know that air could be a more cost-effective alternative. You might be wondering how air-assist can be the best solution you need for your laser cutting requirement.

Read on to know about air-assisted laser cutting and decide if it’s worth your investment.

While many would consider air-assisted laser cutting as a new technology, it has been around for nearly two decades. Machine tool manufacturers have been developing this cutting process since 1998. Since then the use of air as an assist gas has remained steady and has been growing in high popularity among fibre and CO2 lasers. The major drawback with this kind of laser cutting when it was first used in CO2 lasers is its mode quality. However, as research and development continue to improve, the limitation of mode quality has been overcome.

Nowadays, compressed air-assisted laser cutting is an efficient and popular method for laser cutting in Toronto for a variety of metal materials. One major reason for its popularity is the high return on investment in using this technology for fibre lasers or for cutting operations that involve stainless steel. More specifically, the intense heat of the laser that is further assisted by injected air produces clean cuts in the absence of oxide formation. This results in the elimination of secondary finishes to be done on the cut parts.

Another key benefit of using air-assisted gas in laser cutting in Toronto is the increased throughput due to faster cutting speed. For instance, it is about 22 times faster in cutting stainless steel ranging from 0.750” down to 0.036”. For cutting mild steel, it is approximately 3% faster than other gases and 14% faster when cutting aluminum parts.