Electromagnetic Fields as Cutting Tools
Squealing tires and the crunch of impact -- when an accident occurs, the steel sheets that form a motor vehicle's bodywork must provide adequate impact protection and shield its passengers to the greatest extent possible. But the strength of the steels that are used throw up their own challenges, for example when automobile manufacturers have to punch holes in them for cable routing.
Struggling to pierce the hard steel, mechanical cutting tools rapidly wear out. And because they also leave some unwanted material on the underside of the steel (burr, as the experts call it), additional time has to be spent on a finishing process. One possible alternative is to use lasers as cutters, but they require a great deal of energy, which makes the entire process time-consuming and costly.
