Energy and Resource Efficiency of Laser Cutting Processes

Due to increasing energy and resource costs at the one hand and upcoming regulations on energy and resource efficiency at the other, a growing interest of machine tool builders in the environmental performance of their machine tools can be observed today. The last decade, academic as well as industrial research groups started to assess the environmental aspects of discrete part manufacturing processes and indicated a significant potential for improvement [1]. This paper provides an overview of the environmental performance (energy and resource efficiency) of different types of laser cutting systems and derived performance improving strategies.