A Brief Analysis Of The Laser Processing Market For Copper Materials

A brief analysis of the laser processing market for copper materials

Laser processing relies on the interaction between the thermal energy radiated by the beam and the material to achieve instantaneous vaporization, decomposition, melting or modification of the materials to achieve the desired workpiece processing requirements, which is called laser Manufacturing or laser processing. Nowadays, laser processing is rapidly spreading in our country and has penetrated into the production lines of hundreds of industries.

Laser processing has been proven to be the easiest and most suitable for application on metal materials. According to rough statistics, metal material processing accounts for more than 85% of all laser processing applications in the world. However, at present, in metal processing, ordinary steel material processing accounts for the majority, and the application volume of steel materials is undoubtedly the largest, especially stainless steel and alloy steel, which have been used in all aspects of life. However, the application of laser in other metal materials, such as copper, aluminum and other non-ferrous metals, is still very small. Copper and aluminum alloys are the first basic materials for many industrial products. They have excellent electrical conductivity, heat transfer, and resistance. Corrosion and wear resistance. Aluminum alloy has high strength and is a good material for lightweighting, but this article focuses on copper materials.

1. Laser cutting and welding of copper

Copper has always been a metal material with a high value. Especially since this year, the prices of international bulk futures steel, plastics, copper, aluminum, cardboard, etc. have risen a lot. Common copper materials include pure copper, brass, red copper and other types. The material shapes include rods, wires, plates, strips, strips, tubes, foils, etc. In fact, copper is an ancient metal. Many precious bronzes dating back thousands of years have been unearthed in modern times. Therefore, improving the craftsmanship and processing quality of copper materials is a very important task. Laser processing of copper materials will be a very promising option.

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Copper plates, copper sheets and copper tubes should be the most suitable for laser cutting. However, copper is a highly reflective material. In ancient times, copper sheets were also used to make mirrors, which had low absorption of laser beams. In many cases, It is less than 30%, which is equivalent to 70% of the laser being reflected, which not only causes a waste of energy loss, but the reflected light can also easily cause damage to the processing head, lens, laser and other components. Therefore, copper has been a major challenge for laser cutting for a long time in the past.

CO2 laser cutting machines can cut thick materials well and can also cut copper, but a layer of graphite spray or magnesium oxide must be coated on the copper sheet to prevent reflection from damaging the equipment. The absorption rate of copper for fiber laser beams is very low, but manufacturers have implemented isolation devices in product structure design. nLight was the first to launch a fiber laser that resists highly reflective materials. Later, domestic manufacturers such as Zhongke Guanghui and Fibo All have launched fiber lasers that are resistant to high reflection. Some companies that make cutting heads have also designed anti-reflective light for the processing heads, which has opened up the market for fiber lasers in copper sheet cutting applications. Nowadays, it has been realized to use 3KW to cut copper plates with a thickness of 10mm.
Compared with cutting, laser welding of copper materials is more difficult. Welding requires melting of the base material, which usually results in higher power or longer duration light return than cutting. The absorptivity of copper increases as the wavelength decreases, which means that lasers in the visible band (for example, green lasers with a wavelength of 532nm) will have significant advantages when used for copper welding. Green lasers are more popular in foreign countries for welding copper. materials, but green lasers are subject to power limitations. Foreign company TRUMPF has achieved kilowatt-level green light lasers, while domestic companies can only achieve 100-watt level at best, and the gap is obvious.

The emergence of the swing welding head makes fiber laser suitable for welding copper materials. The maturity of fiber laser power, application and matching provides guarantee for welding copper materials. Thousand-watt fiber lasers expand more space for copper material welding applications. In the past two years, the emergence of blue-light semiconductor lasers has been domestically produced, which is also a good thing for copper welding. The wavelength of blue-light lasers is about 400-460nm, and the absorption rate by copper materials can reach 70%. Copper sheets that were originally welded by 3KW fiber lasers are now used A blue laser of 1.5KW may be sufficient.

2. Copper materials are widely used and will drive demand for laser processing

Copper is a very good conductive material, so it has a large number of applications in power, cables, motors, switches, printed circuit boards, capacitors, communication devices, telecommunications base stations, etc. Copper has good thermal conductivity and is widely used in heat exchangers, refrigeration equipment, home appliances, pipes, etc. In addition, copper is widely used in the battery industry. Especially in recent years, laser welding technology has gradually been adopted for battery packaging and power battery cells. Copper is widely used and consumed in the electrical and electronic industries, accounting for more than half of total consumption. With the gradual maturity of laser technology and the use of laser processing in copper material-related components, it is estimated that laser processing of copper materials will bring more than 10 billion yuan in equipment demand for laser equipment in the future, becoming a new growth point in the laser industry.