Investigations of Polypropylene Foil Cutting Process Using Fiber Nb: Yag and Diode Nd:YVO4 Lasers

Lasers are widely used in a variety of manufacturing processes including: depaneling, drilling, cutting, repair, trimming, micromachining. Polypropylene foils are intensively investigated as materials with great number of potential applications. Laser cutting is a major operation used in forming these materials and preparing the final workpieces. At the moment, the main challenge when cutting polypropylene is to obtain high quality products characterized by optimum sheared edge condition, minimum surface damage, freedom from burrs, slivers, edge wave, distortion, residual stresses and to obtain minimum width of HAZ zone. The amount of adjusTab. process parameters and the fact that the influence of these parameters on the process is not fully understood makes it difficult to control the cutting process. In practice, the right setup for the lasers is mostly found by trial and error combined with experience. Therefore, the final product frequently has serious defects. The paper presents the possibility of using fiber and diode lasers for forming of workpieces from polypropylene multilayer foil using cutting technology. The effect of selected process parameters and conditions on quality of sheared edge and material degradation is discussed.