Review of plasma arc cutting process and its comparative analysis with laser beam machining process in terms of energy consumption

Among the non-traditional manufacturing processes, electro-thermal based processes are used to machine the difficult to cut materials. Among thermal based unconventional machining processes, laser machining and plasma arc cutting (PAC) are most significant processes that find applications in various industries including aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding, chemical processes equipment manufacturing and fabrication. In this manuscript, the parametric optimization of PAC is extensively reviewed. Bibliometric analysis of PAC was performed using Web of science and Scopus database wherein research publications were analyzed between year of 1961 to 2023. It was observed from the analysis that minimization of energy consumption in thermal based non-conventional machining methods is not extensively studied. Therefore, literature was reviewed to discuss about energy consumption and reduction of energy requirements in laser and PAC machining.