Underwater cutting of stainless steel with the laser transmitted through optical fiber

Hideki Okado; Takashi Sakurai; Junichi Adachi; Hidehiko Miyao; Kunio Hara

doi:10.1117/12.375176

14 January 2000 Underwater cutting of stainless steel with the laser transmitted through optical fiber

Hideki Okado, Takashi Sakurai, Junichi Adachi, Hidehiko Miyao, Kunio Hara

Proceedings Volume 3887, High-Power Lasers in Civil Engineering and Architecture; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.375176
Event: Advanced High-Power Lasers and Applications, 1999, Osaka, Japan

Abstract

By using a fiber-transmitted laser beam and high pressure oxygen gas, underwater laser cutting of thick stainless steel was demonstrated. In the field of decommissioning, underwater cutting of nuclear facilities is desirable. For this operation, it is very useful to apply the laser beam transmitted through optical fiber because of flexibility. We used chemical oxygen-iodine laser for fundamental experiments with laser beam power of 1-7kW. And for this experiments, we designed cutting heads with some ideas for nozzles and optics. The nozzles have various nozzle diameters and two kinds of shapes; one is conical, and the other is divergent. The latter was designed to make a supersonic gas flow by using high pressure oxygen gas. And we prepared several focusing optics with different focal lengths, which have influence on both the focal spot diameter and the depth of focus of the laser beam that incidents upon a workpiece. Cutting ability was measured by cutting a tapered workpiece. From this investigation it was clear that the nozzle-to-workpiece distance that was about 10mm had the large tolerance of deviation, and there was a suitable optics according to laser power.

Citation Download Citation

Hideki Okado, Takashi Sakurai, Junichi Adachi, Hidehiko Miyao, and Kunio Hara "Underwater cutting of stainless steel with the laser transmitted through optical fiber", Proc. SPIE 3887, High-Power Lasers in Civil Engineering and Architecture, (14 January 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.375176

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