What Is Laser Light Source?

Laser Cladding, also known as laser melting or laser cladding, is a new surface modification technology. It forms a metallurgically bonded cladding layer on the surface of the base by adding cladding material to the surface of the substrate and using a high-energy-density laser beam to melt it together with a thin layer on the surface of the substrate.

The lasers used for laser cladding are mainly CO2 lasers and solid lasers (mainly disk lasers, fiber lasers and diode lasers. The old lamp-pumped lasers have gradually faded out of the market due to low photoelectric conversion efficiency and cumbersome maintenance). Domestic and foreign scholars have done a lot of research on continuous CO2 laser cladding. The development of high-power solid lasers has developed rapidly and is mainly used for surface modification of non-ferrous alloys. According to literature reports, when using CO2 laser for aluminum alloy laser cladding, the aluminum alloy substrate is easily deformed or even collapsed under CO2 laser irradiation conditions. The output wavelength of solid lasers, especially disk lasers, is 1.06μm, which is one order of magnitude smaller than the wavelength of CO2 lasers, and is therefore more suitable for laser cladding of such metals.

Laser cladding has the following characteristics:

(1) Fast cooling rate (up to 106K/s), belonging to the rapid solidification process, easy to obtain fine-grained structure or produce new phases that cannot be obtained in the equilibrium state, such as non-stable phase, amorphous state, etc.

(2) The coating dilution rate is low (generally less than 5%), and it has a strong metallurgical bond or interface diffusion bond with the substrate. By adjusting the laser process parameters, a good coating with a low dilution rate can be obtained, and the coating composition and dilution degree are controllable;

(3) Small heat input and distortion, especially when high power density rapid cladding is used, the deformation can be reduced to the assembly tolerance of the part.

(4) There is almost no restriction on powder selection, especially when cladding high melting point alloys on the surface of low melting point metals;

(5) The thickness range of the cladding layer is large, and the coating thickness of a single powder feeding is 0.2~2.0mm;

(6) It can be selectively clad, with low material consumption and excellent performance-price ratio;

(7) Beam aiming can enable cladding in difficult-to-access areas;

(8) The process is easy to automate.

Laser cutting machine is a technological revolution in sheet metal processing and is the "processing center" in sheet metal processing; laser cutting machine has high flexibility, fast cutting speed, high production efficiency, short product production cycle, and has won a wide market for customers. The effective life of this technology is long. Most of the plates with a thickness of more than 2 mm abroad use laser cutting machines. Many foreign experts unanimously believe that the next 30-40 years will be the golden period for the development of laser processing technology.

Generally speaking, it is recommended to use laser cutting machine for cutting metal materials such as carbon steel plates within 12mm and stainless steel plates within 10mm. Laser cutting machine has no cutting force and no deformation during processing: no tool wear, good material adaptability: no matter whether it is simple or complex parts, it can be cut by laser in one precise and rapid molding: its cutting seam is narrow, the cutting quality is good, the degree of automation is high, the operation is simple, the labor intensity is low, and there is no pollution: it can realize automatic cutting and nesting, improve material utilization, low production cost, and good economic benefits.

There are many factors to consider when purchasing a laser cutting machine. In addition to the maximum size of the workpiece currently being processed, the material, the maximum thickness that needs to be cut, and the size of the raw material format, more consideration should be given to future development directions, such as the maximum size of the workpiece to be processed after the technical modification of the product, the format of the material provided by the steel market, which type of material is most cost-effective for your own product, loading and unloading time, etc.