New year, new machine!
We are happy and proud to announce the arrival of a new laser cutting machine! This will help to optimise productivity and prices. Send us a request to try it now!
20th year anniversary
20 years ago, along the advent of the first tube laser cutting systems in the world, Tubilaser was born.
20 years later, we want to share with you the joy and pride for this small milestone, the result of so much passion and effort.
20 years of growth based on quality and seriousness towards the customer as well as the precious experience in the laser cutting of metal profiles.
Benefits of fiber laser cutting for metal profiles, tubes, and pipes
With narrow photon beams and high-speed engines, optical fiber-based laser cutting machinery offers superior precision in the production of metal profiles and tubes.
A fiber cable conducts the laser beam to the cutting head, which is equipped with a lens system so that can focus the beam with decimal precision. Compared to CO2-based technology, fiber laser cutting offers greater efficiency, stability, and precision as well as significantly higher output. Let’s explore all the benefits of this heat-powered cutting system.
Benefits of fiber laser cutting
The most efficient and versatile laser-based cutting technology, laser cutting is suitable for processing materials such as iron, stainless steel, galvanised iron, aluminium, copper, and brass.
It allows highly precise cuts and the creation of complex geometric patterns on metal profiles of varying lengths and thicknesses, ensuring optimal results in a one-step process that minimises the need for further refinement.
With a narrow wavelength and high beam density, fiber-based laser cutting machinery penetrates materials faster and offers higher efficiency compared to CO2-based systems. On thin surfaces, the higher cutting speed results in 200% greater output.
Also, fiber laser cutting systems do not require regular source maintenance (such as reactivation or regeneration of the beam source) and ensure consistent cutting quality over time.
Tubilaser’s fiber laser cutting machinery
The Tubilaser production plant is equipped with 3 state-of-the-art fiber laser installations for the processing of aluminium, copper, and brass tubes and profiles up to 355 mm in diameter and up to 12,500 mm in length.
With this versatile technology, we can process highly reflective materials – such as aluminium and aluminium alloys, brass, and copper – that would otherwise damage CO2-powered cutting systems. Optical fiber systems are also suitable for processing titanium, steel compounds (such as galvanised steel, stainless steel and carbon steel), Hastelloy®, and Inconel®.
With a solid background in metals processing and advanced systems, we can cut metal profiles and tubes of any section and dimension, with maximum planning and design flexibility.
Tubilaser installations ensure high-precision cutting of pipes and profiles with exceptional finishing and minimum burrs and swarf.
Contact us today to discuss the best solution for you.
Calculate the weight of iron tubes and metal profiles with T-Cal™
Determining the weight of iron pipes, beams, and metal profiles entails complex calculations and multiple reference sources that depend on the composition and thickness of a particular piece. However, precisely calculating weight is essential to streamline a project’s design phase, reduce the purchase costs of raw materials, and ensure precise processing of units.
To help you make precise calculations, Tubilaser designed T-Cal™: a free and reliable online tool for calculating the weight of beams, pipes, profiles, and tubes made of iron, steel, aluminium, copper, and brass. To ensure maximum precision, T-Cal is based on hundreds of relevant formulas and reference charts.
This means you can determine the weight of any iron tube or metal profile (expressed as kg/m) in seconds. To calculate the weight of a single unit or batch in real time, head to the online T-Cal calculator and follow the simple three-step wizard.
How to calculate the weight of iron and metal beams with T-Cal™
- Select your material from the Materials menu.
- Select the type of tube (round, square, rectangular, or oval) or metal beam (flat, angular, U/L/H, IPE).
- Specify your item’s dimensions and click “More options” to enter the length and quantity of units/rods.
- T-Cal will automatically calculate the weight of your piece or batch.
- With T-Cal, you can also print summaries of weight calculations to attach to your projects.
Benefits of T-Cal™
With our free online tool, you can rapidly calculate the weight of tubes and pipes made of iron and other materials. This will save you time in the planning stage and beyond. Additionally, T-Cal eliminates the risk of calculation errors resulting from manual cross-referencing and provides quick and precise estimates of the weight of any single unit or batch.
For open profiles and beams (HEA, HEB, IPE), T-Cal generates a section sketch with details on thickness, spokes, and other measures that aren’t usually found in manuals and charts – but are extremely valuable in a project’s planning and processing stages.
T-Cal is used by design engineers, beams retailers, and tubes manufacturers worldwide. To access our weight calculation tool at your convenience, bookmark this page.
New website tubilaser.com
It’s now live our new website! We decided to renew the look, to add more content and information about Tubilaser world and in general on the laser cutting of pipes and profiles. We hope you like it and … beware of imitations! For more information on the processes click here>
Laser cutting aluminium tubes
Laser cutting is applied when processing aluminium tubes and beams for a variety of industrial applications, such as furnishings, lighting, component production, light carpentry and aviation parts. Aluminium pipes come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from standard profile tubes (round, square or rectangular) to special profiles such as open-ended beams, flat bars, U and L profiles. Being a reflecting material, aluminium can only be cut with special optical fiber-powered lasers. Its properties may cause serious damage to CO2-powered machinery.
Laser cutting aluminium: benefits of fiber laser cutting equipment
The fiber laser beam is created by the seed laser and is amplified with special glass fibres. The wavelength of the power source makes the cutting faster and stronger, which means this technique is especially suitable for the processing of extra-thin or highly reflective materials such as aluminium and aluminium alloys, copper and brass.
Overall, these systems provide superior performance and benefits over CO2-based technology:
- Improved cut efficiency with identical power;
- Enhanced production speed and stability;
- Reduced energy consumption;
- Reduced machinery maintenance.
The level of precision ensured by fiber laser cutting applications of aluminium and other materials ensures the production of highly detailed and accurate finished units.
Aluminium laser cutting, without size restrictions
With tree fiber laser installations, Tubilaser can process aluminium profiles and beams without shape or size restrictions. We process round profile tubes (12 to 360 mm in diameter), long square-section pipes (12×12 mm to 250×250 mm) and rectangular pipes (20×10 mm to 300×150 mm) up to 12,5 metres long.
The flexibility of fiber laser technologies helps us meet the needs of customers tasked with challenging and extreme projects. As an example, in 2015 we laser-cut 10 m long aluminium pipes with a 250 mm diameter to manufacture street lamps to be installed in the United Arab Emirates. The contracting company had searched for a supplier in several countries, but couldn’t find anyone that could process such large profiles. Thanks to the first installation of a fiber laser prototype in the world in 2014, Tubilaser met the lighting company’s needs and provided clean-cut aluminium pipes that were used to realise the project.
Are you looking for an expert and reliable laser cutting partner for your large aluminium, copper, brass or metal beams and pipes? Get in touch today for a non-binding quote.
2 new laser cutting machines
Along the construction of the new headquarters, we announce the arrival of two new plants for the processing of tubulars and metal profiles.
They are extremely fast and performing, which add up to the current ones, forming a total of 6 laser cutting machines.
We constantly invest with the aim of always providing the best for our customers, strengthening the service, minimizing waiting times, managing what’s most urgent and expanding the range of sections that can be processed even to special profiles, both closed and open. Contact us for more information>
Metal processing: laser cutting
Compared to traditional mechanical systems, metal processing with laser cutting technologies provides several benefits and allows for extremely clean cuts with a +/- 0.1 mm tolerance. The superior precision of the laser cutting process minimises the need for further refining of the processed units, ensuring exceptional finishing whilst minimising burrs and swarf.
Processing metals applying laser cutting technology
Laser cutting is based on a photon beam which is aimed at the surface of the tube by a computerised system. In the context of metal processing, laser technology allows the generation of controlled high temperatures in a very small area to provoke the quickly melt or vaporise the tube surface at a specific spot.
A special nozzle located underneath the lens releases the assisting gas that creates a fluid dynamic pressure that separates and removes production debris and eliminates the need for further corrections. The geometric precision of laser combined with the purity of the assisting gas produces clean cuts with minimum surface roughness.
Types of laser cutting processes
Laser cutting systems vary based on the power source and assisting gas deployed during the process. Inert gas-assisted laser cutting uses gases such as nitrogen, argon and helium to remove the molten material from the cut area. This technique provides quality results with significantly reduced smearing.
The remaining types of laser cutting technologies are characterised by the used power source:
> In CO2-based laser cutting, a gas mix of electrically “pumped” carbon dioxide is used. This technology ensures metal processing of superior quality, both with standard and thick pipes made of steel or a steel alloy.
> In fiber laser cutting, a diode-based laser seed is amplified by an optical fiber system. The system enables precision processing on reflective metals such as aluminium, brass and copper.
Such technologies provide the best results for the cutting and processing of metal pipes and beams in a variety of shapes and sizes, ensuring superior cleanliness and precision compared to mechanical systems.
With two decades of experience in laser cutting of iron, steel, aluminium and other materials, we provide expert and flexible services which allows us to meet the most demanding and urgent requests applying bespoke solutions. Get in touch today for a non-binding quote.
New headquarters in Istrana (Treviso)
After long and demanding months on the construction site, we are happy and proud to announce the opening of the new headquarters in Istrana, in the province of Treviso.
It is a newly built, designed specifically for the laser cutting industry: 6 dedicated machines in an area of 18000 square meters, an international reference for laser cutting of pipes and profiles.
We thank all the collaborators, workers, professionals and the companies that have supported and endured us in the last year and a half, without you it would not have been possible. Find out more about the new location>
Building with steel: beautiful, easy and convenient
From the magazine: INSPIRED FOR TUBES, April 2016, Number 22:
Laser cutting of small diameter (<6”) and medium size tubes (<12”) is now a universally accepted industrial process; but is laser tube cutting and specifically the use of a fiber laser, useful when it comes to large diameter tubes? To find out the answer to this question, let us go to the Venetian hills in Italy, in the Prosecco wine region, to a company called Tubilaser S.r.l. For more than 15 years, Tubilaser has been a supplier of structural steel tubing and laser cut tubular components.
Tubilaser serves a wide variety of industries; construction (bridges and stadiums), agricultural machinery manufacturers, ski-lift structures for ski resorts, interior design and architectural elements, general fabrication, etc. In short, their customers can be anyone that uses laser cut tubular components. Tubilaser initially purchased BLM GROUP’s laser tube cutting technology as a way to differentiate themselves from other fabricators. According to Guido Bonaldo, owner of Tubilaser, “it was a way for us to be able to offer our customers better quality components at a lower cost”.
The decision to use the laser cutting process for large dimension tubes was in part a logical decision because it allowed Tubilaser to satisfy their customers’ requirements but it was also a result of entrepreneurial intuition that Guido Bonaldo had nearly 15 years ago, much ahead of its time. He rightly realized the potential advantages offered by laser cutting process, even in cutting large tubes. These advantages weren’t as obvious at the time he made the investment. “Initially all the customers treated my decision to invest such a large sum for a machine as sheer madness” says Bonaldo referring to his decision to buy the LT20. “In the early days, we did not receive any drawings requesting we quote on large components or structures. We had to work hard with our customers engineering departments to convince the designers about the advantages of using the laser cutting process. These advantages were well-known for smaller tubes but it took some time to convince the market that the same advantages were valid for larger, heavier tubes”.
Slowly the customers began to realize the benefits of laser cutting and started to implement innovative design solutions for their parts. Now, even for simple applications, the laser cutting process is automatically assigned. Flavio Colusso, Tubilasers’ production manager, explains it this way. “The advantage does not lie in the automation of the manufacturing process for a single component, but they cover the entire production process for a given project and that results in the overall lower costs compared to the traditional processes” says Flavio. To explain his point he gives this example.
“Let us consider two 40 feet long, large diameter round tubes. These tubes are to be end-cut to form a 90° joint between them and they also have other pockets to be cut along their length where additional tubes are to be inserted to form a tubular structure. Now you will appreciate that these pockets have to be cut with correct orientation with respect to the end-cuts; a small error, even of one degree in terms of orientation, will cause considerable mismatch at the other end of the tube. Such errors are common when fabricating with traditional manual processes. The time required to rework the parts (often in the field) to correct these errors can be almost infinite. The LT JUMBO family of laser tube machines can produce these types of large tubes in a single, completely automatic cycle with an accuracy and repeatability that cannot be matched by the old manual processes.
"With traditional methods, the total time (and hence cost) required to produce a given component can’t be determined in advance because it depends upon a number of factors, the most important of which is the operator skill"
"With traditional methods, the total time (and hence cost) required to produce a given component can’t be determined in advance because it depends upon a number of factors, the most important of which is the operator skill"
Filippo Bonaldo
“An example of one such successful project was the fabrication of complex tubular structures for railroads. These structures are installed along a railway line and are used to hang signals and other indications for trains. These tubes were laser-cut and then sent to the site, ready to be assembled. No further adjustments or any kind of rework was required during their assembly and the structures were assembled like a puzzle” says Bonaldo. He continues and touches another important aspect; “The operator skills in the traditional processes are not the same as they were once upon a time. In the past, an operator was capable of producing a component on his own once you gave him the drawing. New workers don’t have the same skill set. Any mistakes made are very costly because either you have to spend a lot of time for rework and repair or scrap everything and start anew. Since material cost for large dimension tubes is very high, one can’t afford to do this”.
Using a fiber laser on the LT14 machine was also not an obvious choice because the machine was designed to be used for large diameter tubes with thick walls and we all know that the fiber lasers offer their best performance in terms of higher cutting speed when used to cut thinner materials. The fiber laser was chosen for its overall lower operating costs. “The tubular construction and agricultural machinery sectors are extremely cost sensitive. Fiber laser technology with its lower energy consumption (and hence lower installed power requirements) and lower maintenance helps to reduce the cost per piece. It also adds the capability to cut other materials. This expanded capability is an important factor for any tube fabricating job shop. These advantages amply offset the small compromise that we have to accept with the quality of cut surface obtained” says Bonaldo. In fact, compared to an installation with a CO2 laser, the electrical power requirement is almost half, there is practically no maintenance required on the laser resonator because there are no moving parts in the fiber laser, there is no chain of mirrors to guide the beam and hence no question of their alignment, cleaning and maintenance. With a CO2 laser all these maintenance activities result into stoppage of machine and loss of production. In addition to that, fiber laser has an additional stand-by power module inside the fiber laser that kicks into action in case one of the operating modules should have some problems.
The use of fiber laser technology compels the machine manufacturer to completely enclose the working area to ensure operator safety. On the LT20 the laser cutting process is viewed via video cameras installed in the working area. Bonaldo considers this aspect as a plus. “Since the working area is totally enclosed, the machine manufacturers have to pay extra attention to make certain the machine operation is more reliable and capable of resolving eventual hiccups in an automatic manner, as much as possible” says Bonaldo. An interesting point of view!
We can conclude that the challenge of using laser cutting process for cutting large dimension tubes has been overcome. There was some reluctance in the beginning but now Tubilasers’ customers have understood the advantages of having accurate, high quality components that can be easily assembled and welded on site and hence the laser cutting process for such components has become their new standard. The designers working in this industry have also learned the potential new design freedoms offered by this technology, and they have started to use it freely to design innovative structures that are aesthetically pleasing. Contact us for more informations >
