How to Distinguish between Waterjet, Laser and Plasma Cutting?

A customer recently asked the question:How do you differentiate between water jet, laser and plasma cutting? This is a good question, and there are many different possible answers. The best "value" of a machine depends on what is most "valuable" to you! Some of the things you value most may be the cost of purchasing the machine, operating costs, quality of cut, accuracy of cut parts, or productivity. Let's take a quick look at some of the differences between these three cutting processes - water jet cutting, laser cutting, and plasma cutting - and compare their ratings.

Productivity

Any discussion of operating costs would be incomplete without considering productivity, since the total cost per part will be determined by the cost per hour to run the machine divided by the number of parts produced per hour. Productivity is determined by comparing cutting speeds. A fair evaluation also needs to include the number of cutting tools, since you can easily have a machine with four water jet cutting heads cutting simultaneously.

Cut Edge Quality

Cut edge quality is the verticality of the finished cut and the amount of slag that sticks to the bottom of the cut. The highest quality cuts usually come from water jets, which provide very square cuts with no slag or perforation splatter.

Laser is almost second because it also produces a very square kerf, but on thicker mild steel or stainless steel it leaves some slag and produces some perforated spatter. Compared to these two processes, plasma cutting has the lowest cut quality. Plasma always has some edge slope and often produces some slag. Due to the large width of the cut, it produces more perforation spatter than laser.

Reduced part accuracy

The accuracy of the cut part is a comparison of the actual resulting part size with the programmed part size and also includes consideration of the slit width, which determines how small the internal contour can be cut. Heat distortion should also be considered as it can reduce finished part size and cause part warpage. Again, water jetting is the best for accuracy, usually around +/- 0.005 inches, with a kerf width of about 0.035 inches.

Water jets also do not cause thermal distortion. The laser will be a very close second, with typical part dimensions of +/- 0.005" and an average kerf width of about 0.025". However, the laser will cause some thermal distortion, especially on thicker plates. Again, plasma comes in last, with typical part size tolerances of about +/-0.020" and typical slit widths of about 0.150".

Flexibility

This criterion cannot be quantified as easily as cost or speed. However, it may be important to consider the type of material that can be reduced in your purchasing decision. By far, water jet cutting is the most flexible of these three cutting processes because it can cut virtually any material. Lasers are limited to metals, some plastics, fiberglass and some fabrics. Plasma is the most limited. It can only cut conductive metals and is really only applicable to mild steel, stainless steel and aluminum.

Conclusion

There are many other factors to consider that can make a more accurate assessment, but this comparison provides a quick overview of the relative ratings of some of the things that people value most in a CNC cutting system. However, the results depend on the criteria that you and your company value most.

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