Application of Ultraviolet Laser Working in Cold Ablation Conditions for Cutting Labels Used in Packaging in the Food Industry

This work presents experimental studies aiming at the development of new technology and guidelines for shaping labels from polypropylene multilayer foil using an ultraviolet (UV) laser cutting operation. Currently on production lines, the shaping of labels is undertaken by mechanical cutting or lase...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Materials 2020-11, Vol.13 (22), p.5245
Main Authors: Bohdal, Łukasz, Kukiełka, Leon, Patyk, Radosław, Gryglicki, Rafał, Kasprzak, Piotr
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ablation
Cold
Cutting speed
Foils
Food processing industry
Heat affected zone
Injection molding
Labels
Laser ablation
Laser beam cutting
Lasers
Micromachining
Multilayers
New technology
Optimization
Polyethylene
Polypropylene
Process parameters
Production lines
Quality assessment
Surface properties
Tool wear
Ultraviolet lasers
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Summary:This work presents experimental studies aiming at the development of new technology and guidelines for shaping labels from polypropylene multilayer foil using an ultraviolet (UV) laser cutting operation. Currently on production lines, the shaping of labels is undertaken by mechanical cutting or laser cutting, taking into account the phenomenon of hot ablation. These technologies cause many problems such as burr formation on labels sheared edges, rapid tool wear, or heat-affected zone (HAZ) formation. The experimental tests were carried out on a specially designed laser system for cutting polypropylene foil using the phenomenon of cold ablation. Parametric analyses were conducted for several foil thicknesses t = 50, 60, 70 and 80 µm. The process parameters were optimized in terms of high efficiency and high labels-cut surface quality. A new criterion has been developed for assessing the quality of UV laser cutting of polypropylene foils. The results indicate a significant effect of the cutting speed and laser frequency on the width of the degraded zone on the sheet cut edge. As a result of a developed optimization task and reverse task solution it is possible to cut labels at high speeds (v = 1.5 m/s) while maintaining a high quality of cut edge free of carbon, delamination and color changes. A degraded zone does not exceed in the examined cases s ≤ 0.17 mm.
ISSN:1996-1944
1996-1944
DOI:10.3390/ma13225245