Textiles

Because of the great variety of products in automobile construction, and the associated manufacturing processes, basic components of the vehicles' interior trim vehicle are to an increasing extent being cut to shape individually. In these cases, CO₂ lasers with typical power ratings of 300 Watt are used, because they can cut even compound materials like textile / plastic at speeds of up to 5 meters per minute. They have the notable advantage of melting the textile fibers during the thermal cutting process, so that they cannot fray, as they do in the case of mechanical cutting processes. This advantage is also exploited in the cutting of airbag material and cloth for apparel. Here, multi-layered materials are mostly cut at higher power.