Fonon Corporation, a multi-market holding company, R&D center, equipment designer and manufacturer of advanced laser material processing systems for subtractive and additive manufacturing, highlights applications for its Titan FX Laser Cutting Systems for heavy equipment manufacturing.

Many of the most popular metal materials used in manufacturing heavy equipment and machine parts – aluminum, brass, and copper – are defined as highly reflective materials. Each material brings a unique combination of benefits: strength, durability, heat- and corrosion-resistance, and heat and electrical conductance. Yet fabricators who use traditional methods to process these metals often face challenges that can result in poor cut quality.

“Highly reflective material” is a term that almost all metal processing practitioners know. The term is used to define a material, the surface of which reflects 92%-98% of visible light, plus a similar portion of medium and far infrared radiation in solid form. Such materials require peak laser power for effective surface processing. Fonon Corporation’s Titan FX Laser Cutting System presents the most advanced, high-performance, reliable, cost-effective way to cut reflective metal. Titan FX lasers do not use mirrors and delicate lenses, so the reflection from metals like copper, aluminum and brass does not damage the cutting equipment. The fiber laser source incorporates a proprietary built-in back-reflection isolator (sometimes called a beam dump for reflective laser light that protects the source from back-reflections (or back-scatter) generated by the workpiece. The whole cutting process is safe and stable, without any damage to the laser source.

More important, Titan FX equipment incorporates an advanced direct drive motion system, CleanCut technology and adaptive thin-to-thick fiber laser beam shaping, which benefit businesses that need to precisely cut highly reflective metals at production-level speed, balancing high acceleration, cut speeds and positioning with maximum accuracy. For common materials processing, they achieve speeds three to four times faster than CO2 lasers of equal wattage.

Traditional flatbed laser cutting systems rely on rack and pinion, ball screws, or belt drives to traverse the cutting head face limitations common to all mechanical, high-contact systems, including wear and tear of the gears, reduced belt tension over time and damage from the inevitable accretion of contaminants, grit and dust generated by normal production conditions. Fonon’s Direct Drive Motion System lifts the cutting head smoothly and quickly across the working surface area. Without ball screws, belts, or gears to deteriorate or break down, Fonon’s Titan FX delivers smoother motion, higher cutting head acceleration and speed, less stress and vibration on the carriage frame, a lower system weight and decreased maintenance requirements.

Conventional laser cutting methods create an area of discoloration, weakening and stressing the material on either side of a cut associated with an excessive heat affected zone. CleanCut technology reduces or eliminates the heat affected zone by producing a beam narrower and more precise than any conventional laser.

Adaptive thin-to-thick beam shaping technology automatically adjusts the laser beam’s properties to process a wide range of material thicknesses. This capability takes advantage of Fonon’s deep understanding of the reflective characteristics of any given material when it reaches the temperature at which it transitions from a solid to a liquid or gas, driving more economical operation, superior edge quality on thick plates and high-speed cutting of thin materials.

Heavy equipment and machine part manufacturers that make use of Fonon’s Titan FX Series typically experience a 10%-30% increase in speed and accuracy and a 10%-30% decrease in kerf loss over similar systems. They are also operator- and regulation-friendly and environmentally responsible, guaranteeing operational excellence, which aids their customers’ pursuit of sustainable market growth. For these reasons, Fonon’s Laser Cutting Technology continues to gain momentum for this and other industries working with highly reflective metals.

For more information about Fonon Corporation's Laser Cutting Technology for highly reflective metals, please visit https://fonon.com.

About Fonon Corporation

Fonon Corporation is a diversified industrial laser equipment company with a continuously growing umbrella of building-block technologies supported by patents, licenses, next-generation hardware, and proprietary metal processing IP. The company is dedicated to advancing industrial technology and designing specialized 3D metal printing systems for manufacturing purposes, representing the fastest path to Manufacturing Readiness Level 10.

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