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What are the applications of laser technology in building materials? At present, hydraulic shearing or grinding machines are mainly used for rebar and iron bars used in building foundations or structures. Laser technology is mostly used in the processing of pipes, doors and windows.
The laser uses its high energy to interact with materials to achieve processing effects. The easiest application of laser beams is metal materials, which is the most mature market for development.
Metal materials include iron plates, carbon steel, stainless steel, copper, aluminum alloy, etc. Iron plates and carbon steel are mostly used as metal structural parts such as automobiles, construction machinery components, pipelines, etc., which need relatively high-power cutting and welding. Stainless steel is commonly used in bathrooms, kitchen utensils and knives, whose thickness demand is not high that a medium-power laser is sufficient.
China's housing and various infrastructure projects have developed rapidly, and a large number of building materials are used. For example, China uses half of the world's cement and is also the country that uses the largest amount of steel. Building materials can be regarded as one of the pillar industries of China's economy. Building materials require a lot of processing, and what are the applications of laser technology in building materials? Now, building a foundation or structure made of deformed bars and iron bars is mainly processed by a hydraulic shearing machine or grinder. Laser is often used in pipeline, door, and window processing.
Laser processing in metal pipes
Pipes used for construction purposes are water pipes, coal gas/natural gas, sewage pipes, fence pipes, etc., and metal pipes include galvanized steel pipes and stainless steel pipes. With higher expectations for strength and aesthetics in the building industry, pipe cutting requirements have been increased. General pipes are usually 10 meters or even 20 meters in length before delivery. After being distributed to various industries, due to different application scenarios, the pipes need to be processed into parts of different shapes and sizes to meet the needs of different industries.
Featured with high automation, high efficiency and high output, laser pipe cutting technology is quickly adopted in the pipe industry and it is great for cutting various metal pipes. The metal pipes with a thickness generally less than 3mm can be cut by a 1000-watt laser cutting machine, and high-speed cutting can be achieved with the laser power of more than 3,000 watts. In the past, it took about 20 seconds for an abrasive wheel cutting machine to cut a section of stainless steel pipe, but it only takes 2 seconds for laser cutting, which greatly improves the efficiency. Therefore, laser pipe cutting equipment has replaced many traditional mechanical knife cutting in the past four or five years. The advent of pipe laser cutting, makes the traditional saws, punching, drilling and other processes automatically complete in a machine. It can cut, drill and achieve contour cutting and pattern character cutting. With pipe laser cutting process, you only need to enter the required specifications into the computer, then the equipment can automatically, quickly and efficiently complete the cutting task. Automatic feeding, clamping, rotation, groove cutting are suitable for round pipe, square pipe, flat pipe, etc.. Laser cutting almost meets all the requirements of pipe cutting, and achieves an efficient processing mode.
Laser Tube Cutting
Laser processing in door & window
Door and window are the important parts of China’s real estate construction industry. All houses need doors and windows. Due to the huge industry demand and increased production cost year by year, people have set higher requirement on the door & window product’s processing efficiency and quality.
The great amount of stainless steel used in the production of door, window, thief-proof mesh and railing mostly are steel plate and round tin with thickness below 2mm. The laser technology can achieve the high quality cutting, hollow-out and pattern cutting of steel plate and round tin. Now the handheld laser welding is easy to achieve seamless welding of metal parts of doors & windows, without the gap and prominent solder joint caused by spot welding, which makes the doors and windows perform excellently with beautiful appearance.
The annual consumption of door, window, thief-proof mesh and guardrail is huge, and cutting and welding can be realized with small and medium laser power. However, since most of these products are customized according to the size of the house, and processed by small door & window installation store or decoration company, who use the most traditional and mainstream cut-off grinding, arc welding, flame welding, etc.. There is a lot of space for laser processing to replace traditional processes.
Laser Welding Security Door
Possibility of laser processing in non-metallic building materials
Non-metal of building materials mainly include ceramic, stone, and glass. Their processing is through grinding wheels and mechanical knives, which rely entirely on manual operation and positioning. And large dust, debris and disturbing noise will be generated during the process, posing great potential harm to the human body. So, there are fewer and fewer young people willing to do it.
These three kinds of building materials all have the possibility of chipping and cracking and laser processing of glass has been developed. The components of glass are silicate, quartz, etc., which are easy to react with laser beams to finish cutting. There have been many discussions on glass processing. As for ceramic and stone, laser cutting is rarely considered and needs further exploration. If a laser with a suitable wavelength and power is found, ceramic and stone may also be cut with less dust and noise generated.
Exploration of on-site laser processing
Residential construction sites, or infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, and tracks, whose materials need to be constructed and laid on-site. But the workpiece processing of laser equipment is often restricted to the workshop and then the workpiece is transported to the second place for application. Therefore, exploring how laser equipment can perform real-time onsite processing in its application scenarios may be an important direction of laser development in the future.
For example, the argon arc welder is popular and widely used. It is featured with low cost, great portability, the loose requirement on power, high stability, strong adaptability and can be easily carried to the site for processing at any time. In this regard, the arrival of a handheld laser welder provides the possibility for the exploration of on-site laser processing in its application scenarios. Handheld laser welding equipment and water chiller can now be integrated into one with a more compact size and can be applied on construction sites.
Rusting of metal parts is a very troublesome problem. If the rust is not treated in time, the product is likely to be scrapped. The development of laser cleaning has made rust removal easier, more efficient, and per processing consumption costs lower. Offering professional door-to-door laser cleaning services to deal with workpieces that cannot be moved and need to be cleaned on the construction site may be one of the directions of laser cleaning development. Vehicle-mounted mobile laser cleaning equipment has been successfully developed by a company in Nanjing, and some companies have also developed a backpack-type cleaning machine, which can realize on-site cleaning for building exterior walls, rainshed, steel frame structure, etc., and provide a new option for the laser cleaning on-site processing.
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