The paper is devoted to investigating the position of the anode spot on the cut edge during high-precision plasma processing and studying the trajectory of the melting products flowing from the cut edge. The material of samples is structural steel of St3 (<strong>GOST 14637-89)</strong> having the thickness of 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8 mm. The formation of the cut edge was carried out according to the HiFocus technological scheme of cutting by using the equipment manufactured by the Kjellberg firm (Germany). It was found that among technological parameters such as current, cutting speed, pressure and flow rate of cutting and swirl gases considered in the paper the greatest influence on the position of the anode spot on the cut edge is made by the cutting speed. For the investigated technological scheme of cutting the ratio between the anode spot and the thickness of the cut material lies in the range from 0.42 to 0.47. The optimization of the processing speed is based on studying the trajectory of the melting products outflow from the cut edge.

Specific features of electrochemical dissolving of 12X18H9T stainless steel, OT-4 titanium alloy and BK8 hard alloy in the sodium nitrate water solution exposed to 1.06 micrometer wavelength laser irradiation are considered. It is found that the main mechanism of activating the dissolving process is to increase the reactivity of the electrolyte by stepwise photoactivation.