Laser Cutting Auxiliary Gas

Laser cutting machine and laser cutting technology is very popular now. We can see laser cutting product everywhere in the daily life. When laser cutter working, laser cutting auxiliary gas is necessary and different material need use different gas.

fiber laser cutting auxiliary gas

Common Laser Cutting Auxiliary Gas

Common auxiliary gas main have three kinds. One is inert gas, such as N2 and argon gas. For laser cutting, we main use N2, argon main use on laser welding. Second is combustion-supporting gas, such as O2. We main use O2 on carbon steel cutting as its cutting edge not easy be oxidized. Third is compressed air. It can be used both on metal cutting and non metal cutting. but its main application is co2 laser for non-metal. Few people use it on fiber laser cutting machine.

Co2 laser cutting machine

Co2 laser engraver can do both non-metal engraving and non-metal cutting. We can do engraving directly without auxiliary gas. But when we cut some thick wood, acrylic or plastic, usually we use compressed air as auxiliary gas. Not only blow away the smoke and powder, but also it is combustion-supporting and we can cut thicker material and make the cutting edge smooth.

Fiber laser cutting machine

There is main have three kinds auxiliary gas for fiber laser cutting machine, O2, N2 and compressed air.

O2 main used on carbon steel (mild steel). Carbon steel is not easy to be oxidized, so we use O2 as auxiliary gas. We know o2 is combustion-supporting, also we can get thicker cutting thickness when use O2 gas. Due to carbon steel is black color, even it is oxidized, the cutting edge is still smooth and bright.

Different with carbon steel, stainless steel is easy to be oxidized and the cutting edge will show clear yellow color. So we main use N2 as laser cutting auxiliary gas. N2 belong to inert gas and can avoid the cutting edge oxidized. So we also use N2 on other material such as aluminum. brass and galvanized sheet etc.

We only use compressed air on some thin metal material. Usually ordinary compressor can’t reach high pressure, so its cutting thickness is not more than 2mm, whatever stainless steel or carbon steel. Also there is people use compressed air cut 3mm or 4mm stainless steel, it need high pressure(1.8mpa). In this case we need use special compressor.