Laser cutting is experiencing a rising worldwide acceptance in the industry. Expert system is necessary for the systematic arrangement and searching of experimental data existing in journal papers, job handbooks and etc..
This paper proposes an expert system for the selection of the appropriate laser cutting variables from the available database. To share the database of similar materials, the similarity simulation was adopted for grouping the similar materials. Optimum cutting conditions according to the given cutting velocity were searched and qualitative comments which are hard to choose as database variables were showned at each velocity using the binary and fuzzy inference. Typical cutting conditions of mild steel and stainless steel were included. These comments could be informative to unskilled laborers of the laser cutting process. The working range and quality variations were displayed graphically.
The proposed algorithm was implemented as an expert system for $CO_2$ laser cutting to derive optimum cutting confitions using the turbo prolog in an IBM compatible personal computer.
