What Is the Difference between Laser Cutting and Plasma Cutting?

1. Laser cutting: Laser cutting uses a focused high-power density laser beam to irradiate the workpiece to quickly melt, vaporize, ablate or reach the ignition point of the irradiated material. At the same time, the molten material is blown away by the high-speed airflow coaxial with the beam. In this way, the workpiece can be cut apart. Currently, CO2 pulsed lasers or fiber continuous lasers are generally used, and laser cutting is one of the thermal cutting methods.

2. Water cutting: also known as waterjet, that is, high-pressure water jet cutting technology, is a machine that uses high-pressure water to cut. Under the control of the computer, the workpiece can be carved at will, and the material quality is less affected. Water cutting is divided into two methods: no sand cutting and sand cutting.

3. Plasma cutting: Plasma arc cutting is a processing method that uses the heat of high-temperature plasma arc to locally melt (and evaporate) the metal at the incision of the workpiece, and use the momentum of high-speed plasma to remove the molten metal to form an incision.

4. Wire cutting: WireElectricalDischargeMachining (WEDM for short), belongs to the category of electrical machining, WirecutElectricalDischargeMachining (WEDM for short), sometimes also called WEDM. When the electrode wire moves back and forth at high speed, the cutting accuracy is poor. When the electrode wire moves in one direction at a low speed, the cutting precision is very high.