The appearance and use of glass in human life has a history of more than 4,000 years, from the beginning of a small glass bead to the present life of a thousand glass products, none of which is not a witness to the integration of glass into human life. In life, glass is widely used, such as a variety of utensils, tableware and other daily necessities; vases, ornaments, artificial glass and other works of art; light bulbs, monitors and other industrial supplies.
With people's demand for glass processing in energy saving, environmental protection, safety and other aspects is more and more high, the original rough processing and production methods have been unable to comply with the market development requirements.2022 December, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Construction, the Ministry of Water Resources, four departments issued the "on the in-depth promotion of the Yellow River Basin industrial green development of the Guiding Opinions".
The Guidance puts forward 14 specific tasks in five key directions. The following three points are closely related to the glass cutting industry that we are going to explore next:
First, to promote the adjustment of industrial structure and layout, including the promotion of industrial optimization and upgrading, resolutely curbing the blind development of high-pollution, high water-consumption, high-energy-consumption projects, the strict implementation of the industry's production capacity replacement policy, and promote the withdrawal of backward production capacity in accordance with the law.
Secondly, promoting intensive utilization of water resources, including promoting water efficiency in key industries, implementing industrial water efficiency upgrading and transformation, vigorously promoting advanced water-saving processes, technologies and equipment, and creating wastewater recycling demonstration enterprises and parks.
Thirdly, to create a new engine of industrial development with less consumption of energy and resources, less environmental pollution, high value-added and strong market demand, accelerate the development of new generation of information technology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, green environmental protection, emerging services and other strategic emerging industries, and drive the green and low-carbon development of the Yellow River Basin.
At the same time, the "Guiding Opinions" made it clear that it is necessary to continuously improve the level of electrification of industrial end-use energy, and accelerate the promotion and application of electric kilns, electric boilers, electric power and other alternative processes, technologies and equipment. By 2025, the proportion of electric energy in industrial terminal energy consumption reached about 30%. On the contrary, the current glass drilling industry, the existing CNC drilling, waterjet drilling for the waste of water resources and environmental pollution, there is a huge risk of hidden danger. In the context of green development, more energy-saving, environmentally friendly laser glass drilling technology will usher in new opportunities for development.
Glass CNC drilling is a way of drilling holes in glass using a drill. Different processes can be accomplished by replacing drills of different specifications. However, CNC drilling in the working process requires water to constantly cool the drill, need to be equipped with cold water recycling device, and the drill needs to be replaced regularly, the operator's technical requirements are higher, the overall cost is high. In addition, grinding takes a long time and wastes a lot of water.
Waterjet cutting belongs to cold cutting, will not produce heat in the cutting process, the use of pressurized devices to spray high-pressure water injection and mixed with hard gravel to process the glass, automated waterjet cutting can be in the middle of the glass to open the holes, but also to achieve the curve of the cutting. But in the process of using a large amount of water and sand, not only the use of high cost, and environmental pollution is also greater, while the impact is large, not suitable for thin glass processing. If the water pressure is too large, it will make the glass vibration, resulting in uneven cutting edges, sand pipes, nozzles are wearing parts, if not replaced in time can easily lead to glass edge rupture.
Glass CNC perforation, waterjet perforation are contact processing, causing greater stress damage to the glass, drilling with burst edges, glass surface scratches, the minimum hole diameter is only 1mm, can not do millimeter-level small microporous, and lower efficiency, environmental pollution, water waste are more serious, the cost of processing is also relatively high.
Laser perforation of the physical process is: the laser pulse focused on the bottom of the glass to produce a "micro-explosion", the glass into powder particles. Single-layer material removal is accomplished by scanning the laser focus horizontally. Layer by layer, from the bottom up, the material is removed and the glass is finally perforated. The whole process does not have any physical contact, and does not require other auxiliary materials and manual operation, a good solution to the glass CNC punching, waterjet punching technology due to contact processing caused by the glass burst edge and scratches and other undesirable problems.
In the actual production application, laser drilling and traditional mechanical drilling has many things in common, such as the same use of three-axis, five-axis motion control, the same preparation of CNC programs for automatic processing. Laser focus is like a tangible no real cutterhead, laser energy density is the hardness of the cutterhead, machine tool is the right laser focus.
At the same time, laser perforation also has its own distinctive features, it is generally recognized that laser perforation has the following advantages:
- Fast, high efficiency;
- Can process a variety of materials, such as ceramics, composite materials, high-temperature alloys;
- Non-contact processing, no tool loss, low cost;
- Can process small holes which are finer than the tool or electrode wire;
- Flexible head, higher accessibility;
- Green environmental protection, energy saving and high efficiency.
