Textile material multi ply cutting by laser

Abstract

Multi ply fabric cutting by laser is very challenging because of low thermal conductivity of textile materials. A laser beam can through-cut only limited number of fabric plies placed one above another. In experiment the conditional spread of ten 100% cotton fabric plies was cut by a laser beam to see how cutting speed influences cutting quality. It was established that using a 100 W laser beam all 10 plies could be cut only by lower speeds 30-45mm/s. In the laser cutting process the cut edges of material got coloured. The smaller was processing speed, the wider coloured edges were obtained. After sample washing edge colouring disappeared. Additional laundry process will not be needed processing garments which are dyed as a ready goods or manufacturing denim clothing when vintage look is obtained during washing process.

Keywords

• laser cutting
• fabric multi-ply cutting
• cutting speed
• laser power