Plasma arc cutting is a steel cutting method that was initially invented on the basis of plasma welding in the 60s. The Method uses a mixture of ionized gases to vaporize material from the cut surface. It involves a close electrical circuit, where the stream of gases i.e. plasma emerges from the cutter, flows thru the electrically conductive material and rotates thanks to a grounding clamp somewhere on the metal.
In other words it is an electrically heated, high pressure gas stream blown through a narrow-hole nozzle, focused on the metal. Closing the electrical circuit heats the stream, which moves in the form of really fast vortex and vaporizes metal with a temperature between twenty and thirty thousand degrees C°. Our Sun normally shines with 6 000 C°
The process is schematically depicted on the picture.
In practice this cutting technology is widely used, due to its capability of high-speed cutting, better accuracy and cleaner cut quality. As CNC (Computer Numerical Control) technologies were combined with the plasma cutting method in the late 80s, it became very popular for producing custom –made parts from carbon and stainless steel, aluminum, titanium, brass and chrome.
In the past, when plasma was integrated with CNC, the technology was limited to cutting only flat 2D models from a sheet metal. Nowadays rotating torches allow cutting of tubes and even bevels from flat steel.
The plasma cutting method is very useful, because it can cut both, thin sheets (0.5 to 4 mm) and thick sheets (5 to 70mm). However, it is most effective in terms of price, time and quality, from 8mm thick sheets, where the laser cut quality starts to decline, up to 70mm, where flame cutting becomes faster.
A nice example of our plasma cutting capacity can be seen on the next video:
Photo by Halacious on Unsplash
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