Quality control criteria, traditionally adopted for manufactured parts by laser cutting, have related generally to cut characteristics as kerf width, inner side slope of it, heat affected zone extent, dross appearance; all these methodologies require sample examination, appropriately prepared. That can provide useful results on process control only after quite a long time that a possible misworking is happened. This paper propose to adopt the appearance of cutting surface microgeometry as process control method; this morphology has been detected by means of a new rugosimeter which uses a laser beam as stylus, therefore the profile can be measured without contact between stylus and workpiece, while the related measures can be elaborated soon after the carrying out of cut. In this stage of study the methodologies of acquisition and elaboration of experimental roughness profiles, the specification of more significant parameters and the correlation between these last and the main variables of laser cutting process are reported.

Date Published: 1 February 1991
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 1397, 8th Intl Symp on Gas Flow and Chemical Lasers, (1 February 1991); doi: 10.1117/12.25908

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 1397:
8th Intl Symp on Gas Flow and Chemical Lasers
Concepcion Maroto Domingo; Jose M. Orza, Editor(s)