Principle of action
Thermal cutting and waterjet cutting

Oxycutting

It uses the thermal energy generated by iron combustion, combined with the kinetic energy of the oxygen jet to eject the oxides produced from the blast furnace. Iron combustion requires the presence of preheating flames to start up and then maintain itself correctly.

The tool is a cutting flashlight fitted with a cutting head (or nozzle), and supplied with the appropriate gas sources (oxygen and fuel gas).

Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram of an automatic oxygen cutting system.

Plasma cutting

Plasma is sometimes referred to as the fourth state of matter, following on from the three classic states (solid, liquid, gas). It is made up of a large number of species (molecules, atoms and ions), most often...