Laser cutting of composites—Two approaches toward an industrial establishment

Carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) are of high interest as a lightweight material due to their high strength-to-weight ratio. Within industrial fields with a requirement on lightweight design and energy efficiency, the demand of CFRP increases continuously. Up to now, the cutting of CFRP, as a basic production step within the production of composite parts, is mainly performed by conventional cutting techniques such as milling and abrasive water jet cutting. These techniques are known to have drawbacks, e.g., force input, handling of auxiliaries, and tool wear. The laser cutting of CFRP has already shown high potential to be a practical alternative due to the wear-free and contactless processing. However, as a thermal technique, laser cutting has to overcome the challenge of heat input into the material. Two different approaches concerning deterioration free cutting will be examined and compared within this research. For that purpose, two different laser sources were used. Both laser sources have a ma...