Industrial lasers have been thriving in the past few years and are widely used in metal plate, tubing, consumer electronics, glass, fiber, semiconductor, automobile manufacturing, marine equipment and so on. Since 2016, industrial fiber lasers have been developed to 8KW and later 10KW, 12KW, 15KW, 20KW......
The development of laser technique has led to the upgrade of the laser equipment. Domestic lasers are developing much faster than what their foreign counterparts expected, either pulsed fiber lasers or continuous wave fiber lasers. In the past, the global laser markets are dominated by the foreign companies, such as IPG, nLight, SPI, Coherent and so on. But as domestic laser manufacturers like Raycus, MAX, Feibo, Leapion began to grow, that kind of domination has been broken.
High power fiber laser is mainly used in metal cutting and accounts for 80% of the application. The main reason for the increasing application is the reduced price. In less than 3 years, the price dropped by 65%, bringing great benefit to the end-users. In addition to metal cutting, laser cleaning and laser welding are also promising applications in the coming future.
The current situation of metal cutting application
The development of fiber laser has brought revolutionary change for metal cutting. Its advent creates huge impact on the traditional tools like flame cutting machine, water jet machine and punch press, for it is doing a much better job in cutting speed and the cutting edge. Besides, fiber laser also has an impact on the traditional CO2 laser. Technically speaking, it is an “upgrade” of the laser technique itself. But we can no say that CO2 laser is no longer useless, for it is quite excellent in cutting non-metals and have superior cutting performance and smooth cutting edges. Therefore, foreign companies like Trumpf, AMADA, Tanaka and domestic companies like Hans Laser, Baisheng still keep their capacity of CO2 laser cutting machine.
In the past 2 years, laser tube cutting has become the new trend. 3D 5-axis laser tube cutting could be the next important but also the complicated application of laser cutting. Currently, there are mechanical arms and gantry suspension these two types. They enlarge the range of metal parts cutting and will become the next focus in the coming future.
The metal materials in general manufacturing industry requires 2KW-10KW fiber laser, so fiber laser of this range accounts for the big part in the sales volume and the proportion will continue to grow. This situation will last long in the coming future. At the same time, laser metal cutting machine will become more intelligent and more humanized.
The potential of laser metal welding
Laser welding has been growing by 20% continuously in the past 3 years, having greater share than other market segments. Fiber laser welding and semiconductor welding has been applied in precision welding and metal welding. Nowadays, many welding procedures require high degree of automation, high productivity and full integration into the product line and laser welding could meet those needs. In automobile industry, the new energy vehicles gradually adopt laser welding technique for welding power battery, car body, car roof and so on.
Another shining point of welding is handheld laser welding machine. Because of easy operation, no need of clamp and controlling tools, it becomes instant heated once it is promoted in the market. But one thing needs to be mentioned that handheld laser welding machine is not an area of high technical content and high added value and is still at the promoting stage.
Laser welding is expected to keep the growing trend in the coming years and continues to bring more demands on high power fiber lasers, especially in high-end manufacturing.
Selection on medium-high power laser cooling solution
No matter it is laser cutting or laser welding in high power or ultra-high power, the processing effect and stability are two priorities. And these reply on the equipped recirculating air cooled chillers. In domestic industrial refrigeration market, S&A Teyu is a well known brand with high sales volume. It has mature cooling technology for CO2 laser, fiber laser, semiconductor laser, UV laser and so on.
For example, to meet the demand of currently popular 3KW fiber laser in cutting thin metal plate, S&A Teyu developed CWFL-3000 air cooled chillers with dual cooling circuit. For 4KW, 6KW, 8KW, 12KW and 20KW, S&A Teyu also has the related cooling solutions. Find out more about S&A Teyu high power fiber laser cooling solutions at https://www.chillermanual.net/fiber-laser-chillers_c2
