|
CO2
laser cutting of slate
-
-
Optics
and Lasers in Engineering 37 (2002)15 –25
M.Boutinguiza
a ,J.Pou a, *,F.Lusqui *nos a ,F.Quintero a , R.Soto a ,M.P
!erez-Amor a ,K.Watkins b ,W.M.Steen b
a Dpto.F !ýsica Aplicada,Uni v ersidade
de Vi g o,La g oas Marcosende 9,E-36200 Vi g o,Spain b Department
ofEn g ineerin g ,Laser En g ineerin g Group,The Uni v ersity
ofLi v erpool,Brownlow Street, Li v erpool,L69 3GH,UK
Received
3 May 2001;received in revised form 24 July 2001;accepted
24 August 2001
Abstract Slate
is a natural stone which has the characteristic that shows
a well-developed defoliation plane,allowing to easily split
it in plates parallel to that plane which are particularly
used as tiles for roof building.At present,the manufacturing
of slate is mostly manual,being noisy, powdery and unsafe
for the worker.Thus,there is a need to introduce new processing
methods in order to improve both the working conditions
and the quality of the products made of slate. Following
the previous work focused on the drilling and cutting of
slate tiles using a Nd:YAG laser,we present in this paper
the results of the work carried out to explore the possibilities
to cut slate plates by using a CO2 laser.A 1.5 kW CO2 laser
was used to perform di .erent experiments in which,the in
.uence of some processing parameters (average power, assist
gas pressure)on the geometry and quality of the cut was
studied.The results obtained show that the CO2 laser is
a feasible tool for a successful cutting of slate.©
2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.All rights reserved.
-
- Download
a pdf copy of this paper
( 0.2
MB )
-
-
-
|
