Remote cutting is stated to be a very fast laser cutting process for the cutting of thin materials. As the main characteristics of remote cutting have been studied only in past couple years, the quality of the cut is still not well compared and specified against other processes. Process parameters of remote cutting differ from the traditional laser cutting because of the multi-pass and vaporizing characteristics of the process. Process parameters and performance also vary depending on the used equipment and processed material. Parameters have to be optimized for each set up to achieve the best cut quality.
Quality of laser cut kerf can be measured in various ways. In this study, various metals were processed using remote cutting. The quality of the cut kerfs were measured by burr height, kerf width, perpendicularity tolerance, surface roughness, 90 degree corner sharpness, and heat affected zone. The quality of the cut kerf is also compared to those of conventional CO2 laser cutting and remote fusion cutting with multimode fiber laser. When possible the comparison was carried out according to valid standard of thermal cutting.