AN ON-LINE LEARNING AND TRAINING TOOL FOR LASER CUTTING

Abstract

With the rapid development and wide applications of the laser processing, laser technology has also been tightly integrated with computer sciences. Nowadays, the predictive software for engineering science has become increasingly popular among users. The software can be used for simplifying complex experimental processes and thus predicting the results of the experiments. For example, ANSYS and FLUNT are commercial software tools for finite element modeling and computational fluid dynamic modeling. As laser cutting and drilling are becoming more common in industries, it is desirable to have a software tool that can be used for training potential users. Even for an experienced laser-processing engineer, a software tool to aid the new process evaluation would be useful. This project aims at developing such a software tool for learning and training purposes in laser cutting and to assist in designing and prediction of laser cutting/drilling experiments. A database containing physical properties of various engineering materials has been developed and incorporated in the software tool using MySQL. A 'Laser Fabrication Studio' game based on-line training tool was developed to help users to understand the knowledge of laser cutting, drilling and machining.

Date of Award	1 Aug 2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Zhu Liu (Supervisor) & Lin Li (Supervisor)