Status Quo and Future Development Trend of Laser Cutting Machine

As an advanced sheet metal processing technology and means, laser cutting machine has been rapidly and widely adopted in various industries of industrial machinery due to its significant advantages such as high efficiency, high precision, and high flexibility, and has also attracted more and more industry applications. Some people will ask, after more than 40 years of continuous development of laser cutting machine, it has become more and more mature, so how will it develop in the future? What is its development trend? In the context of China's ambition to realize the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry and intelligent manufacturing, the above two issues are especially worth discussing. There is a saying in the West that "the future is determined by the past". This statement provides us with a key to open the door to the future of laser cutting machines. That is, if we want to grasp the future development trend of laser cutting machines, we can start with an insight into the status quo of laser cutting machines. The Status Quo of Laser Cutting Machines

In order to gain insight into the current status of laser cutting machines, we may wish to summarize and analyze them from the following aspects.

Laser cutting machine realizes epoch-making product revolution

Since the end of 2008, when Han's Laser Sheet Metal Equipment Division took the lead in developing high-power fiber laser cutting machines in the world, a revolution in the light source of laser cutting machines has begun. Now that eight years have passed, the high-power CO2 laser cutting machine has fallen into the abyss of serious decline. The epoch-making fiber laser cutting machine has occupied the global laser cutting machine stage with its higher cutting efficiency, lower operating cost and wider cutting range. the exact center. Its representative events are: Han's Laser has become the second largest manufacturer of laser cutting machines in the world in terms of production and sales by virtue of its lofty technology strategy and market application advantages. Manufacturers of CO2 laser light sources have sunk into a trough; the world's mainstream laser cutting machine manufacturers have to turn to the development and sales of fiber laser cutting machines one after another, and at the same time, a large number of domestic and foreign manufacturers that only produce fiber laser cutting machines have been born. This light source technology revolution has brought a greater return on investment to end users and a multi-billion dollar industrial value chain to the market. In recent years, more than 40% of the industrial lasers produced and sold in the world for laser processing are used for laser cutting, which surpasses laser welding, laser marking, laser texturing, laser heat treatment and laser cladding. It ranks first in industrial laser applications, showing that laser cutting technology has a very important technical application status, and it also indicates that laser cutting machines have a very eye-catching development space. This is the most important technological revolution since the birth of the laser cutting machine. High, medium and low power fiber laser cutting machines are developing side by side

Since today's CO2 laser cutting machines are marginal in terms of production and sales, the laser cutting machines we are going to talk about here are all fiber laser cutting machines. In the past five years, 300-1000W medium and low power fiber laser cutting machines, 1000-3000W high-power fiber laser cutting machines, and 3000W high-power fiber laser cutting machines have achieved rapid development in their respective fields due to their different cutting capabilities. Development can be said to go hand in hand and fully bear fruit. This is also the best proof of the era of fiber laser cutting machines. The degree of automation of laser cutting machines has been significantly improved.

Is the laser cutting machine just a piece of equipment for precision cutting of sheet metal? Yes, of course not all. In the first two decades since the birth of the laser cutting machine, it has gone through a relatively long road to product stability. During and after this process, laser cutting machines have developed towards application specialization, such as template laser cutting machines, laser cloth cutting machines, laser tube cutting machines, flatbed laser cutting machines, robotic 3D laser cutting machines, and 3D five-axis laser cutting machines. Machines, etc. have come out one after another, and they have all been stereotyped products so far. But at the same time, it cannot be ignored that laser cutting machines are striding forward in the direction of automation. For a laser cutting machine, it is equipped with auxiliary units such as automatic feeding, automatic unloading, automatic slag discharge, and automatic picking, which can effectively reduce labor intensity, reduce the number of workers, shorten the standby time, and even realize unattended operation. Therefore, the application rate of laser cutting machines can be comprehensively improved. For example, the FMS laser cutting automatic production line launched by Han's Laser in 2010 (see the figure below) is a proof that laser cutting machines are developing towards automation.

In fact, the well-known laser cutting machine manufacturers with extensive influence in the world have invested heavily in practice here, occupying the first-mover advantage in the development of laser cutting machine automation, and also leading the development and application direction of laser cutting machines.

What enlightenment can the current situation of laser cutting machines summarized from the above three aspects bring us? Is the future development direction and trend of laser cutting machines really hidden in it? So, let us stand in the present and look at the future of laser cutting machines.

The future development trend of laser cutting machine

The laser cutting machine will continue the epoch-making product revolution.

The laser light source is the core component of the laser cutting machine, and it is also an important indicator that determines the type and cutting ability of a laser cutting machine. Needless to say, the future changes of laser cutting machines will also occur on the laser light source. As mentioned above, the replacement of CO2 laser cutting machines by fiber laser cutting machines is the most important technological revolution in the forty years since the birth of laser cutting machines, bringing epoch-making economic benefits to manufacturers and new and old users in this field. So, in the future, is there a new light source that is cheaper, has better performance, better beam pattern, higher electro-optical conversion rate, or lower overall cost than fiber lasers? The answer is of course yes. So further ask, what is the laser? Of course, there is no way to give an exact answer right now. Science and technology sometimes falter, sometimes a thousand miles. At present, the author can only say that the development of semiconductor lasers deserves close attention from friends in the industry. High-power fiber lasers will become the main force in the laser cutting machine market

At present, fiber cutting machines in various power ranges have ushered in great development. However, where is the mainstream laser power of future laser cutting machines? Although laser cutting machines in various power ranges have their own uses, Han's Laser, which started with high-power fiber lasers and triggered the global laser cutting machine technological revolution, regards higher power, higher precision, and greater cutting ability as the One of the important development directions of fiber laser cutting machine. At the 13th China International Machine Tool & Tool Exhibition at CIMES2016, Han's Laser grandly launched the 8000W fiber laser cutting machine, pushing the maximum power of the applied laser to the peak. It has achieved unprecedented breakthroughs in both cutting speed and cutting thickness, attracting industry attention. Does this contain the development trend of laser cutting machines in the future? It is worthy of the expectation of industry experts, scholars and users. In addition, it is certain that in the near future, many domestic and foreign fiber laser cutting machine manufacturers will usher in a period of reshuffle in the fierce market competition. Only companies with excellent product quality, continuous focus on R&D investment, and mastery of core competitive technologies can achieve success and remain invincible. The era of intelligence will come in an all-round way.

Whether it is Industry 4.0 in Germany or intelligent manufacturing in China, the fourth industrial revolution in the industrial field is coming quietly. As a high-precision CNC laser cutting machine, the laser cutting machine is bound to keep pace with the times and keep pace with technology. The automatic development of laser cutting machines has greatly improved the production capacity and automation level of the sheet metal workshop (the picture below shows the production site of the Han's laser pipe cutting machine group, which realizes automatic processing operations in the whole process).

In the future, on this basis, an era of intelligent manufacturing of laser cutting machines is brewing in the fields of network technology, communication technology, computer software technology and other fields. It can be foreseen that, as a means of precision sheet metal cutting, it will use its own network communication capabilities to communicate with the sheet uncoiler, bending machine, CNC punch, welding (riveting) unit, shot blasting and coating line in the factory. And other equipment, embedded in a unified production planning, task and assessment management system, has become an important part of the sheet metal workshop management system. As a result, laser cutting machine manufacturers will gradually transform into sheet metal fabrication engineering contractors. Han's Laser Sheet Metal Equipment Division, which was selected into the list of intelligent manufacturing pilot demonstration projects of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China in 2015, is relying on its own system technology integration capabilities, focusing on the future development direction and technical commanding heights, and uniting with Hunan University, Beihang University and other strategic partners , aiming to build an intelligent factory for sheet metal processing and create a new situation of production, education, research and application.