If you’ve ever seen a die cutting machine punch intricate cardstock shapes out of paper blanks, then you’ll have some idea of the principles at work in Aluminium plate profile cutting. The paper is gone, replaced by this versatile metal, and there’s no die cutting taking place, but there is a cutting tool at work. Designed to part two-dimensional profiles from sheets of aluminium, the cutting process begins with single saw equipment.
Single Saw Plate Profile Cutting
A sheet or plate, panel or featureless length of workable alloy separates into straight sections. The saw cuts upward, slices into the workpiece, and the project is swiftly concluded. Supplementary bench clamps rotate the plate to suit the job specs, so assorted angular slices are easily accomplished. Furthermore, the partially processed workpiece can be further profiled by sending it across to a drill station or other machine shop tool.
Large-Scale Plasma Profiling
A workbench tool operated by a skilled craftsman indulges the engineer that lives inside us all, but intricate cuts are difficult to achieve with a rotary saw. In order to make these detail-oriented projects into a specified shape, a CNC tooling unit requires a cutting head, one that’s perhaps equipped with a plasma torch. Lines and sharply angled corners are now accompanied by curves and intricate shapes, with the machinery taking its cues from a computer program.
Water Cutting Systems
The inert gas arcs downward to create a two-dimensional outline, so aluminium plate profile cutting invariably benefits from a hot plasma torch or an oxyfuel cutting equivalent. Huge quantities of energy are expended while the detailed profiles are cut, so a heat sink is an invaluable process extra. The water table situates the aluminium plate underwater, which means the torch heat is diffused rapidly. As a result of this plate submergence strategy, thermally-induced profile distortion is reduced. Curiously, water isn’t limited to a passive role, not when there’s waterjet cutting technology that can do the work without any heat whatsoever.
Aluminium plate profile cutting is a popular service, one that’s not limited to decorative panels. The arcs and curvilinear shapes also grace panels that are intended for the automobile industry, the aeronautics field, and a thousand other applications that rely on this light metal. Other usage areas include marine vessels, kitchen equipment, and the cutting of geometrically dense extruded parts. Incidentally, plasma technology is known to produce a substantial amount of cut “slag,” so a water table or waterjet tool is worth considering, especially when that waste material slows process productivity.