Analysis of Roughness and Heat Affected Zone of Steel Plates Obtained by Laser Cutting

Abstract

In the present study, high-power CO2 laser cutting of steel plates has been investigated and the effect of the input laser cutting parameters on the cut surface quality is analyzed. The average roughness of the cut surface of the specimens, produced by different laser beam diameter and laser power, were measured by using roughness tester. The scanning electron microscopy SEM is used to record possible metallurgical alterations on the cut edge. The aim of this work is to investigate the effect of laser beam diameter and laser power on the cut surface roughness and on the heat affected zone width HAZ of steel plates obtained by CO2 laser cutting. An overall optimization was applied to find out the optimal cutting setting that would improve the cut surface quality. It was found that laser beam diameter has a negligible effect on surface roughness but laser power had major effect on roughness. The cut surface roughness decreases as laser power increases. Improved surface roughness can be obtained at higher laser power. Also, laser beam diameter and laser power had major effect on HAZ width. It increases as laser power increases.