For the cutting of textile, polymer film or other composite materials, more flexible and cost-effective processing technologies are needed. In today's market trend, it is not difficult to find that mechanical die cutting, that is, CNC die cutting, is gradually replaced by laser cutting.
Because laser cutting does not need a mold, it has many advantages over the traditional die cutting system. Thereby avoiding the cost of purchasing various molds or the delay of production due to the manufacture of molds. In addition, the mechanical die cutting system itself has many limitations, which is caused by the physical contact between the cutting tool and the material. The laser cutting system without a mold can also flexibly process thin-film materials, which is another advantage. The above situation explains why the laser cutting system can improve the production efficiency.
Compared with the metal materials cut by laser, the melting point of the fabric is low, and the intensity of the laser beam is not high. The continuous wave laser can be used at a power of several hundred watts. However, the current research mainly focuses on improving the cutting speed to reduce the cycle time.
In addition to shortening the working cycle, laser cutting also has many advantages in improving production efficiency and processing technology. Since laser cutting is a thermal separation process, accelerating the cutting speed can reduce the heat accumulated near the incision.
The traditional laser cutting machine is a gantry machining system, which can combine the laser beam, the material plate (or both) and the XY axis coordinate. Therefore, when processing small contours, arcs or geometric figures, the speed of laser focusing and the accuracy of the path have a certain impact.
Some manufacturers have adopted some methods to overcome this limitation, such as combining heavy axle drive with rigid mechanical structure, combining light mechanical structure with fiber reinforced material components or multi-layer cutting technology (simultaneous cutting of 2-30 layers of fabric).
Scientists from the flownhov Institute of materials and beam technology in Germany pointed out the limitations of the above solutions and carried out relevant research to determine whether the galvanometer technology of laser marking can also be used for laser cutting fabrics.
Laser flying cutting of textile
New solution: Remote Technology
In order to solve the problem of limited dynamics of mechanical structure, high dynamic beam deflection must be adopted, and the movable mirror driven by the motor can be used to position the beam. Because the lens is light in weight, it can be operated with an optical scanning galvanometer, and the positioning beam can be accurately maintained even in the case of high-speed cutting. Up to 10g acceleration. This dynamic characteristic can only be realized without cutting gas, and the residual material in the cutting process must be vaporized.
Long distance processing, especially the continuous wave irradiation laser, the laser power can reach several thousand watts. The maximum working stroke can reach 2 meters, and the processing range can reach 1 × 1 meter. The combination of higher laser power and longer focal length provides higher beam quality, so the cutting speed of several meters per second can be achieved in fabric processing.
Efficient airbag production
In order to ensure the safety of passengers, more and more cars are equipped with various airbags. A variety of airbags need to be highly flexible and effective in system engineering. The cutting of air bag parts is mostly completed by laser cutting with auxiliary gas. Because of the thermal cutting, the processing is realized by the fiber edge without wear.
In recent years, due to the development of multi-layer cutting technology, the production efficiency of this technology has been greatly improved, and more than 30 layers can be cut at the same time. However, this method is very complicated because an independent layer must be separated, especially the layer may have been separated by interlayer. Therefore, the cutting quality of each layer is different, and the number of layers shall be appropriately reduced according to the quality requirements.
Because of the defects of multilayer cutting, scientists began to look for new manufacturing methods such as laser cutting.
A conventional remote control system includes a scanning optical element mounted above the material to be processed. The movement of the light spot is controlled through the scanning lens. The correlation among processing distance, processing range and focal length is complex, and the range of materials that can be processed will also affect the final result.
conclusion
The remote flying cutting technology makes it possible to process materials with various contours and widths. By combining different dynamic and mechanical parameters with the shaft system, the technology can be further improved, so that the laser cutting technology has more advantages than the traditional cutting technology (such as blanking or mechanical cutting). This system concept can transplant the space limited high dynamic beam reflection technology to wider and flat application fields, such as flexible film cutting, leather or paper cutting, welding heat exchanger plates, cutting cover fabrics and fillers.