Abstract
An experimental study was carried out to observe the characteristics of impingement of assist gas from a rectangular supersonic nozzle on kerf surface in laser machining. A micro-scale supersonic (Mach number 2.0) rectangular nozzle system was designed and fabricated for the purposes, and hot tests of the performance of the nozzle system was proceeded in the ITI corporation laboratory. For various related parameters such as laser powers, nozzle pressures and cutting speeds, the quality of the frontal view of cut edge surfaces was observed by a microscope. In the study, it was shown that the application of the present micro-rectangular supersonic nozzle in an off-axis configuration made it possible to cut a mild steel, by combinations of relatively low laser - powers, large standoff distances, and assist gas with no oxygen, which was not achieved by conventional laser cutting processes.