The advantage of laser cutting is that it can quickly and correctly process aluminum foil into different shapes. This technology advantage makes laser cutting equipment as soon as it becomes commercially available to attract many airlines. In the 1970s, major manufacturers evaluated laser cutting technology and found that the micro-cracks produced by laser machining were not acceptable for the damage to the machining characteristics of worn out pure aluminum sheet parts. Latent weight gain hurt manufacturing, and laser cutting technology was shelved by major airframe manufacturers.
In addition to the problem of microcracks, the parameters of laser cutting technology have been found to be difficult to control and almost impossible to test. In the current international manufacturing market, strict control of all processing and characteristic parameter testing is increasingly important, as more of these processing work is outsourced to peripheral suppliers.
Fatigue fractures usually occur where stress is concentrated, such as the edges of parts, geometric changes, or joints. The fuselage parts made of sheet metal have many different ways of joining, and most of the fatigue cracks occur at the joint. If the laser is not used to cut the small hole in the joint, then the laser is mainly used to cut the edge of the part. For other effects, a more vulnerable connection location can be used to show that micro-cracks caused by laser cutting are not the main damage site compared to the joint. In this way, we can conclude that if a part is likely to break at the joint, the laser cutting technology will not further damage the fatigue characteristics of the part.
Post time: Mar-06-2023