Plasma cutting Hardox

[Perry Owens]

Looking into the economics of getting my own plasma cutter versus paying for profiling. One thing I will need to cut is 10 mm Hardox 500 plate. Since plasma is not an abrasive method I'm thinking steel hardness is not an issue but I could be wrong - usually am. I suppose the heat will alter the hardness close to the cut but that will not matter for the use I have.

 

[Drains]

Plasma doesn't put loads of heat into material. It can nitride the very edge of a cut (making it harder), but I doubt that's an issue with hardox. I can't speak from experience but I would imagine hardox is commonly cut on site with oxy/acet and plasma.

The question with plasma tends to be over the heat conductivity of a material rather than anything else, hence capacities are reduced by a large factor for ally and copper, compared with steel. I can't see why you'll have any problems cutting hardox.

 

[TechnicAl]

not a problem

 

[penfold]

Having worked with plasma and lasercut hardox the edges are a bit chewy; we eventually moved to waterjet cutting to avoid this.

 

[mancavedweller]

Here in Australia we have a similar product called Bisalloy. You can download a PDF manual from their website. They say plasma cutting is a satisfactory method of cutting.

Plasma cutting does put a thin layer of nitriding on the cut surface if the cutting gas is air (not if it's oxygen). If the welds are very critical and need to be inspection quality you'd probably have to grind this layer off first, think it's only about 0.1 mm thick.

 

[Metalkoi]

No problem,i cut loads of hardox and can get a good finish on 8 and 10mm