摘要： Laser cutting of metal sheets is a well-established industrial process, however, major process changes are constantly being introduced by newer technologies, e.g. new laser technologies, higher power sources, polarization and beam shaping control units, and gas flow optimizations. The multi-physical nature of the laser cutting process makes detailed simulations complex and demanding in terms of computational and implementation efforts. The gap between accurate modeling and industrial requirements makes an experimental approach often more economically realistic. Nevertheless, efficient assessment models that utilize a trade-off between model complexity and accuracy of the response to be assessed are attractive. Such models can be used for further technological development by efficiently supporting engineers in designing and selecting optical systems. This paper revisits model assumptions of an in-house developed laser cutting model as it is validated for larger thicknesses. This model assesses polarization and beam shaping effects on the cutting performance of thin sheets. In this work, dedicated cutting experiments to assess the maximum cutting speed of stainless steel 304L of 2, 6, and 10 mm thickness for a wide range of focal point positions are conducted and compared to the model prediction. The results show that R2 of this comparison decreases from 0.99 for 2 mm thickness, to 0.58 for 10 mm. It can be concluded that the trend prediction accuracy degrades for thicker plates. Analysis of the experiments and simulation data for 10 mm plates reveals two possible phenomena that become more important with thickness: multiple reflections and instability of the melt flow dynamics.