The Application Prospects Of Mixed Gas Cutting Technology In The High-power Laser Cutting Market

1. Current Industry Status and Trends of High-Power Laser Cutting Machines

With the rapid development of the equipment manufacturing industry, China's numerical control laser cutting equipment has entered a period of rapid growth, with an annual growth rate of over 30%. According to statistics, the global cumulative number of high-power numerical control laser cutting machines has reached about 80,000 sets, with the United States and Japan both exceeding 15,000 sets, while China currently owns about 20,000 units of high-power numerical control laser cutting equipment.
In the global market, laser cutting machines are developing towards high power, larger formats, and thick metal sheet cutting. As major projects such as railway construction, highway construction, water conservancy construction, hydropower construction, energy, mining construction, and the construction industry in China,large-format thick steel plate laser cutting machines will be widely used in China's engineering machinery industry. Additionally, cutting and welding are the most basic processing technologies in the shipbuilding industry. Although flame cutting and plasma cutting are generally used for cutting ship steel plates in China, these methods have limited cutting accuracy. Especially for special materials such as decks and hull materials, many large foreign shipyards commonly use laser cutting machines configured with big working table for cutting thick metal. Domestic shipbuilding enterprises have already started purchasing high-power equipment, especially for special-purpose ship, where laser cutting has become a necessary processing method. The production demand in this application industry is enormous. With the advent of the "precision shipbuilding" era, high-power laser cutting technology and equipment have been more widely applied in the shipbuilding industry in the advanced countries. Large format thick plate laser cutting machines are also urgently needed in other important industries, such as cutting the rotors of aerospace engines, laser cutting of hot-rolled steel billets in the iron and steel metallurgy industry, precise cutting of thick armor for tanks and armored vehicles, and precise cutting of generator rotors in power generation equipment.

2. Mixed Gas Cutting (micro Oxygen Cutting) process

The profound changes in the application fields of high-power laser cutting all benefit from the continuous progress and development of domestic high-power lasers and cutting heads. At the same time, as laser power increase, the original traditional cutting processes can no longer meet the requirements for cutting quality and efficiency. In the continuous exploration and innovation of many process engineers, a new mixed gas cutting (micro-oxygen cutting) process has emerged.
Mixed gas cutting combines the advantages of O2 and N2, providing a new process that replaces pure nitrogen and pure oxygen cutting.
Cutting carbon steel plates with a mixed gas (specific mixture of N2/O2) can significantly improve cutting quality at higher cutting speeds, breaking through the quality bottleneck of traditional air cutting, and setting a new standard for high-speed and high-quality cutting.
Mixed gas cutting can achieve better cutting for different qualities of carbon steel plates of , and the higher the laser power, the greater the advantage of using mixed gas cutting. It is a new trend for configuring high-power (12KW and above) laser cutting with the mixed gas generating device.

3.Technical characteristics and advantages of mixed gas cutting  

3.1 Cutting quality advantages

The mixed gas cutting process breaks through the high-quality cutting thickness limit of air cutting carbon steel, effectively solving the quality problems of 20mm-40mm carbon steel air cutting, with less slagging compared to air cutting!

Air Cutting vs. Mixed Gas Cutting

Mixed gas cutting vs. traditional cutting methods.

3.2 Cutting Speed Advantages 

Under the same power, when cutting metal plates of different thicknesses, the efficiency of mixed gas cutting is significantly higher than that of oxygen cutting.

3.3 More economic benefits

From the perspective of cutting revenue, mixed gas cutting revenue is much higher than oxygen cutting. The process adjustment threshold is large, and the requirements for material quality are relatively low, making it a perfect alternative to oxygen cutting; meanwhile, the cost of mixed gas cutting is significantly lower than that of liquid nitrogen cutting, and the cutting quality is even better. In summary, from the aspects of cutting efficiency, cutting quality, cutting cost, and cutting revenue, the mixed gas cutting supply scheme is proven by data to be an indispensable option for your high-power laser cutting machine when choosing a gas supply method.  

Based on the technical requirements of mixed gas cutting and the improvement of nitrogen generating technology, Raysoar has developed a laser process gas supply station-mixed gas generating device. The product functions such as mixed gas cutting, air cutting, and burr-free cutting of aluminum alloys. The high-end upgraded version offers multi-purity output for mixed gas cutting, enabling one process gas supply device to support multiple laser cutting machines for cutting plates of different thicknesses at the same time. Raysoar focuses on innovation and efficiency, always providing value to customers, and its laser cutting solutions cater to the constantly changing market trends. If you want to improve cutting capabilities and/or profitability, Raysoar's fine cutting products are a reliable and wise choice.