Jan 29 , 2023
In our daily life and industrial production, steel, aluminium and copper are the most widely used metal materials. Steel has a large storage capacity, low cost, and a long history. Copper is more expensive. It is mostly used in household appliances, batteries, electronic products and other fields. Both steel and copper materials will encounter a big problem, that is, rust, and it will last forever. oxidation rust. In comparison, aluminium materials have an advantage. Aluminum will also be oxidized on the surface, but the aluminium oxide on the surface will act as an insulator, and the internal material will not continue to oxidize and rust. Moreover, the price of aluminium materials is moderate, and the material is light. It has high hardness and high-temperature resistance and is widely used in high-end fields such as high-speed rail locomotives, aerospace vehicles, and passenger aircraft.
Aluminum has a huge storage capacity, excellent plasticity and ductility, low cost, and a wide range of uses. At present, China is in a period of industrial manufacturing and large-scale construction, and the demand is even greater. Therefore, my country has become the world's largest aluminium consumption country. In daily life, we often see aluminium doors and windows, aluminium building structures, and aluminium bathroom products; high-speed trains, aeroplanes, and even space rockets that people often use a large number of aluminium metal parts. While maintaining rigidity, it can greatly reduce the promotion of weight and lightweight concepts often use aluminium alloys to replace steel.
In terms of automobiles, the characteristics of aluminium are also favoured by manufacturers, such as Audi A8, Tesla, Cadillac and Chery Jaguar Land Rover, which all use aluminium structures on a large scale. The Model S all-aluminum body developed and manufactured by Tesla has the characteristics of lightweight and high strength. Most of the materials for the body and front and rear suspensions are made of aluminium. The application of aluminium is far more than that. Aluminium and aluminium alloys are widely used in container transportation, flood control facilities, bridge construction, daily necessities, household appliances, mechanical equipment and other fields.
The traditional cutting method of aluminium and copper is mechanical cutting, such as grinding wheel and saw blade, but it will bring a lot of dust and material loss. With the rapid development of the aluminium alloy application market, its demand is also increasing. It is particularly important to develop new aluminium processing and laser processing technology is one of the better choices. Aluminum is a highly reflective material, which has a low absorption rate for laser light, and the reflected light will also cause damage to the laser head components. A few years ago, foreign laser manufacturers improved the protection of optical components and realized an anti-high reflection design. By adding an optical isolator to the beam combiner transmission fibre. All shutters and optocouplers feature optical isolation. With the meticulous development of the process window, the CNC laser aluminum becomes a cutting tool for highly reflective materials.
After solving the problem of high reflection, the application of laser processing aluminium materials is opened. As long as the power is increased, aluminium plates with a thickness of more than 50mm can be cut at present. Of course, the aluminium plates commonly used in reality are medium-thin thicknesses.
In terms of welding, the weldability of pure aluminium is poor, and it is often necessary to add solder or flux to achieve splicing. However, in reality, in order to better apply aluminium, aluminium alloy is often used. The alloying elements that are often added are copper, magnesium, Zinc, silicon, manganese, etc. Aluminium alloys can be well used for handheld fiber laser welding machine. For example, a locomotive company under CRRC has used high-power CO2 laser welding for locomotive bodies. In addition, fibre laser, semiconductor laser and coil fed laser can be used in aluminium alloy welding. In recent years, due to the rise of the new energy automobile industry, the sealing process of the aluminium alloy casing of the power battery has used a large number of laser welding.
It is worth mentioning that aluminium metal parts are widely used in common fields such as door and window frames, curtain frames, office desks and chairs, furniture, landscape architecture structures, etc., and due to low-power laser welding, flexible handheld Welding equipment is widely used in steel sheets and pipes. In the future, laser hand-held welding will inevitably enter the application of small aluminium alloy parts, which will bring greater demand potential to hand-held welding.
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