There are quite a few members of AILU who I meet regularly, at or outside of AILU events, and it is always interesting to catch up on news & gossip about what is happening in our laser community. One question that invariably comes up is ‘How is business?’ and you can get a sense of how active different sectors are from speaking with different people.

Since the summer break (when business is often slower for obvious reasons), I get the impression business is not that bad in our industry overall, despite all the talk of economic doom & gloom elsewhere. This might be because I only speak with optimistic people but is more likely to be because, in our field, many of us are somewhat insulated from the very real financial problems facing ‘traditional’ manufacturing and other similar industries. Certainly news items such as ‘Trumpf to buy SPI Lasers’ seem to offer a strong picture of health of laser-based businesses.

LML will be exhibiting at two shows in October - the Micro Manufacturing Live 2008 show in Coventry and the Medical Innovation Forum in Harrogate - and it will be interesting to see what the footfall will be at these shows and what the attendees say about business prospects. This year it will be even more interesting to see what the mood of the attendees is. I am certainly hoping that these shows continue to offer an optimistic indicator and that the laser industry can continue to flourish for some time to come. Fingers crossed.

Nadeem Rizvi
Laser Micromachining Ltd

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2 October 2008
Craft masters
With three Mazak Laser machines DC Group offers its customers a comprehensive 2D and 3D profile cutting service

29 September 2008
gf laser and the Corpus clock
One of the world’s most unusual clocks that was manufactured with the help of gf laser was recently unveiled by Professor Stephen Hawking. Dubbed the strangest clock in the world, it features a giant grasshopper and has a series of slits cut into its face which light up to show the time.

29 September 2008
Minimum Size – Maximum Performance Miniscan from Raylase
Innovative 2-axis deflection unit, with compact design including high-speed operation

29 September 2008
Laser Marking Glass Reinforced Plastic
Glass-filled or glass-reinforced plastics such as polypropylene and ABS are commonly used in the manufacture of various electrical and automotive components.

25 September 2008
Fast CCD Spectrometers from Pro-Lite Make Rapid Light Source Measurements
Pro-Lite Technology LLP (Cranfield, England) has announced the release of the CDS600 & 610 from Labsphere – powerful, miniature spectrometers that make light source measurements in fractions of a second

23 September 2008
First move into laser cutting
Bystronic UK Limited has received an order for equipment valued at in excess of £190,000 from Technical Tubes Limited for a ByVention 2.2 laser cutting system.

23 September 2008
Aerotech’s new ALS130H series direct drive positioning stages provide ultra-low speed scanning solution
Classic two part stage design with cross roller bearings includes a direct drive linear motor and glass scale encoder with 40 MHz encoder processing for sub-nanometre resolution and jitter-free scanning

19 September 2008
All revved up!
“Short lead times, quality of product and large batch runs sum up shop fitting sub-contract work. Customers want orders quickly and production runs are usually large. Laser cutting was a natural progression for us and our first machine was a refurbished Bystronic Bypeed laser cutting system – ideal for thin gauge work and incredibly fast. It turned our business around.”

12 September 2008
Laser Research Group Established
Martin Sharp and Paul French have joined the General Engineering Research Institute (GERI) at Liverpool John Moores University and are in the process of setting up a research group called “Photonics In Engineering” and this will initially concentrate on laser materials processing

11 September 2008
Victor Manufacturing realise 48% energy savings
Victor Manufacturing is a leading commercial catering equipment manufacturer. At their manufacturing site in Bradford an extensive range of food service equipment is manufactured which is used by all kinds of organisations such as hotels, restaurants, hospitals and universities to move, store and serve hot and cold foods.

For more news items see our news section on the AILU website.

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Laser cutting: a technology with some surprises in store

Bill O'Neill, U. of Cambridge

I would imagine that the typical reader of AILU magazine is familiar with most laser based manufacturing technologies, particularly heavy weight processes such as laser cutting. Most research in this area was carried out in the 1970’s and 80’s and equipment manufactures’ have developed extremely robust systems that are capable of operating with minimal operator intervention. The CO₂ laser have been used almost exclusively in this application and has benefited from increased beam quality (slab lasers), stable operation, and high levels of automation. One could argue that the process itself is mature, at the top end of its innovation cycle, and as such exhibits incremental advances in its technical specification rather than quantum leaps in performance. I think I would have agreed with this had I not attended the Laser Technologies Forum in Stuttgart this year, 4–5th March 2008.

IMAGE: Yb fibre laser cutting results on Aluminium and Stainless steel in the range 4-15mm thickness [3]

Reference: [3] E. Beyer et al, “Cutting with High Brightness Lasers”, Stuttgart Laser Technologies Forum, Stuttgart, Germany, 4–5 March 2008.

Click here to find out more

Cutting mild steel with nitrogen

John Powell, Laser Expertise

When laser cutting mild steel with oxygen, the chemical reaction in the cut zone produces a liquid which is easy to blow away because it does not stick to the solid steel. However, the oxidized liquid is not entirely blown out of the cut zone, and a thin layer is left to solidify on the cut edge. The cut edge is therefore covered in a thin, brittle oxide layer, which is not firmly attached to the underlying steel. The lack of adhesion between the brittle oxide layer and the ductile steel is demonstrated in the image. Here we can see that the dark grey oxide has flaked off the cut edge in the area where the component was bent as part of the fabrication process – the bright steel of the cut edge has been revealed where the oxide has broken off.

IMAGE: A 3 mm thick mild steel item cut with oxygen assistance and subsequently bent. Note: the flaking off of the oxide layer on the cut edge in the area where the bend took place.

Click here to find out more

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Welcome to AILU Events, AILU Supported Events and Member events.

16 October 2008
AILU Workshop: Industrial innovation with lasers in the medical sector
This one-day meeting at Photonex 08 is to highlight developments in the application of laser technology to the burgeoning medical and biophotonics sectors. The scope of the meeting includes developments in laser sources, beam delivery, monitoring and control, auxiliary equipment, safety and standards.

15-16 October 2008
Photonex 2008
UK's Premier Photonics Event. The event is held each year at Stoneleigh Exhibition halls near Coventry.

28 October 2008
Light Years Ahead - An Introduction to, and Advances in, New Laser Technology
The next Make It With Lasers event is being held at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford. If you want to learn about Laser Material Processing here's an opportunity to find out more.

5 November 2008
Laser Safety - Applications in Safe Laser Use and Laser Product Design
Laser Safety - A one-day workshop by Lasermet Ltd. Applications in safe laser use and laser product design (with reference to the standard EN 60825-1:2007)

12 November 2008
AILU Workshop: Job Shop 08
The Job Shop Group's annual business meeting is being held at Trumpf's base in Luton. It is open to AILU Members and Laser Job Shop Owners.

25 November 2008
Funding opportunities in High Value Manufacturing: Micro/Nano laser processing success stories
This Micro:Nano Group meeting is being run through the Photonics KTN in partnership with the Nanotechnology KTN. The day comprises presentations about funding calls through the Technology Strategy Board, FP7 and the EPSRC. Hear case studies from successful partners who have delivered successful projects and proposals to obtain funding in recent calls. Give yourself the opportunity to set up collaborations and shape future calls by attending this one day event.

26-28 November 2008
Photonics Valencia 2008
AIDO holds Photonics Valencia 2008 The event hopes to set an important date on the calendar of those industries that want to see the latest technologies applied in their production systems with the aim of minimizing costs and optimizing the resources using applied photonics

3 December 2008
AILU Workshop: Laser processing of polymer, metal and ceramic composites
The last AILU workshop of 2008 will be held on 3 December at the Rolls-Royce Factory of the Future within the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC) with Boeing, Rotherham on the subject of ‘Laser processing of polymer, metal and ceramic composites’. Specific themes include: laser processing of polymer composites within the aerospace industry; laser processing of metallic composite components; machining, cutting, drilling and texturing of carbon fibre composites; material addition and cladding of composites; current state of the art in lasers for composite processing.

For more news items see our events section on the AILU website.

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For further information contact:

AILU
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info@ailu.org.uk
www.ailu.org.uk

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