Laser can achieve processing effect by its high energy and material interaction. Metal materials are the easiest to realize the application of laser beam. It is also the most mature market for development and application at present, mainly including general iron plate, carbon steel, stainless steel, copper, aluminum alloy, etc. Iron plate and carbon steel are mostly used as metal frame parts, such as automobiles, construction machinery components, transmission pipes, etc., which require high power cutting and welding. While stainless steel is commonly used in sanitary ware, kitchen utensils, knives, etc., the thickness requirement is not high, and the medium power laser is sufficient.
 

With the rapid development of housing and various infrastructure projects in China, a large number of building materials are used. For example, China uses half of the world's cement and is also the country with the largest use of steel. Building materials are one of the pillar industries of China's economy. Building materials need a lot of processing, so what applications can laser technology have in building materials?

At present, the rebar and iron bar used for building foundation or structure are mainly hydraulic shear or grinder. At present, laser is mainly used in pipes and doors and windows.

Laser processing of metal pipes

The pipes on the building materials are used for water pipes, gas/natural gas pipes, sewage pipes, fence pipes, etc. The metal ones are galvanized steel pipes and stainless steel pipes.

With people's expectation of the strength and aesthetic degree of the pipes in the construction industry, the requirements for pipe cutting are also improved. General pipes are usually 10 meters, or even 20 meters long, and are processed into parts of different shapes and sizes to meet the needs of different industries due to different application scenarios.

Laser pipe cutting technology has entered the pipe industry rapidly, and is very suitable for cutting various metal pipes, with the characteristics of high automation, high efficiency and high yield. The thickness of the metal pipe of building materials is generally less than 3mm, and the laser power of 1000 watts is sufficient for cutting, and the high speed cutting can be achieved by using the power of more than 3000 watts. In the past, the grinding wheel cutter took about 20 seconds to cut a section of stainless steel pipe, while the laser cutting took only 2 seconds, which greatly improved the efficiency. Therefore, in the past four or five years, the laser pipe cutting equipment has replaced many traditional mechanical knife cutting.

The emergence of the pipe laser cutting process can automatically complete the traditional processes such as sawing, punching and drilling on a single machine, and can cut, open holes, contour cutting and pattern character cutting on the pipe. The pipe laser cutting process only needs to input the required specifications into the computer, and the equipment can complete the cutting task automatically, quickly and efficiently. Automatic feeding, clamping, rotating and groove cutting are applicable to round tubes, square tubes, flat tubes, etc. Laser cutting can almost meet all the requirements of pipe cutting and realize efficient processing mode.

Door and window application

Doors and windows are an important part of China's real estate construction industry. All houses need doors and windows. Due to the huge demand of the door and window industry, with the increasing production costs of windows, people also put forward higher requirements for the processing efficiency and quality of door and window products,

A large amount of stainless steel is used for doors and windows, anti-theft nets, railings, etc., mainly steel plates and round cans with a thickness of less than 2mm. High quality cutting, hollowing and pattern cutting of stainless steel plates and round cans can be achieved at the opening end by laser technology. Nowadays, hand-held laser welding is very convenient. The metal parts used for doors and windows can be welded seamlessly. There will no longer be gap gaps and weld bumps like spot welding, so that the overall performance of doors and windows is better and more beautiful.

The annual consumption of doors and windows, anti-theft nets and guardrails is very large. Cutting and welding can be realized by using small and medium laser power. However, since most of these products are customized according to the size of the house, and are undertaken by small door and window installation stores or decoration companies, the mainstream still uses the most traditional grinding wheel cutting, arc welding, flame welding, etc. The space for laser processing to replace traditional technology is very large.

Possibility of laser processing non-metallic building materials

Non-metallics in building materials mainly include ceramics, stone and glass. These processes are mainly grinding wheels and mechanical knives, which rely entirely on manual operation and positioning. When cutting, they will produce large dust, debris, and noise that disturbs people, which is potentially harmful to human health. Nowadays, more and more young people are willing to do it.

These three kinds of building materials have the possibility of edge collapse and fracture. Laser processing of glass has been developed. The glass is composed of silicate, quartz, etc., which is easy to react with laser beam to achieve cutting effect. Glass processing has been discussed a lot. For ceramics and stones, laser cutting is rarely considered at present, and further exploration is needed. Find the right wave band and power of laser, ceramics and stone can also try to cut, and achieve less dust and noiseless cutting. I hope that domestic enterprises can try to break through in the future.

Exploration of laser scene processing

For residential construction sites, or infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, and tracks, many materials need to be laid on site construction I, while the workpiece processing of laser equipment is often limited to the workshop, and then the workpiece is transported to the site for application. Therefore, exploring how laser equipment can process in real time in the application scene may be an important direction of laser development in the future.

For example, argon arc welding can be popular and widely used. In addition to its low cost, its equipment is very portable, low power requirements, high equipment stability, strong scene adaptability, and can be pulled to the site at any time for processing. On the one hand, the emergence of hand-held laser welding provides the possibility for laser exploration and application of field processing. Hand-held laser welding equipment and water chillers can now be integrated and more compact, and can be used at construction sites.

Rust on metal parts is a headache. Failure to deal with rust in time often leads to product scrapping. The development of laser cleaning has made rust removal more efficient, lower cost of single processing and easier. Providing professional door-to-door service for laser cleaning to deal with workpieces that cannot be moved and need equipment to clean on site may be a direction of the development of laser cleaning. At present, the vehicle-mounted mobile laser cleaning equipment has been successfully developed by an enterprise in Nanjing. In addition, some enterprises have developed knapsack cleaning machines to achieve on-site cleaning of building exterior walls, awnings, steel frame structures, etc., providing a new choice for laser cleaning on-site processing.

About HGTECH: HGTECH is the pioneer and leader of laser industrial application in China, and the authoritative provider of global laser processing solutions. We have comprehensively arranged laser intelligent machine, measurement and automation production lines, and smart factory construction to provide overall solutions for intelligent manufacturing.