Development on laser cutting technique to suppress spatter particles aiming at disposal of radio-active waste

Naoe, Takashi; Teshigawara, Makoto; Futakawa, Masatoshi; Mizutani, Haruki; Muramatsu, Toshiharu; Yamada, Tomonori; Ushitsuka, Yuji*; Tanaka, Nobuatsu*; Yamasaki, Kazuhiko*

Proceedings of 8th International Congress on Laser Advanced Materials Processing (LAMP 2019) (Internet), 5 Pages, 2019/05

Laser cutting is one of the options in the disposal of radio-active waste, such as spallation neutron target vessel in J-PARC, etc. Due to unique characteristic of laser, such as non-contact system, it is more easily to provide remote-controlled system in comparison with conventional one, such as mechanical cutting machine, etc. However, a demerit of laser cutting is the sputter and fume caused by laser cutting, resulting in contamination with radio-active materials its surroundings. Recently it was developed that the spatter suppression technique by controlling laser beam profile in laser welding process. In order to apply this suppression technique to laser cutting, first of all, we attempted to observe the phenomenon at melting area during laser cutting using a high-speed video camera in order to make the physical model. The result showed that the appearance of fume and sputter were independently confirmed in the time evolution.