Mold repair is a growing application for laser welding.
Photo courtesy LaserStar Technologies
welding head away from the worst of the smoke and splatter of welding. “Keeping things clean is vital,” he said. Kugler makes the point that laser welding is best when the part is designed for it. The fi t up and metallurgy of the weld joint is easier to specify correctly if the design engineer knows that lasers are going to make it. “We are also going to see
He believes a future market in North America is the electric car industry with its powerful batteries. “Laser welding systems are especially in demand because of requirements like precision, very high process speed and an optical control system,” he said. These are provided by the company’s diode line of diode-pumped solid-state lasers in combination with the company’s Orlas software suite for process control, according to Resnik.
Steady Growth—High End and Low End “We are not seeing a great jump in demand for laser welding, but rather steady growth,” stated Tom Kugler, fi ber systems manager for Laser Mechanisms (Novi, MI). He agrees users are becoming more familiar with the fact that laser welding uses less material and creates less distortion than alternative methods. He also notes that lasers are in many ways easier to automate. “Perhaps the biggest factor is growing affordability,” he said. The price as mea- sured in dollars per watt continues to drop, for all types of lasers. Kugler also notes that while mid-power lasers
are effective in many applications, he sees growth in both higher power and lower power laser welding. He predicts high-power lasers will see more applica- tions in welding powertrain components, tailored blanks, and some aerospace parts with new specialty alloys. The high-power lasers provide as much or bet- ter beam quality than is needed for welding, allowing standoff focal lengths of 300–600 mm, keeping the
more in the very small sizes in low-power lasers,” he said. “We have the beam quality now to make very fi ne welds” with beam spot sizes down in the 20–50- mm range. With such fi ne quality, there is more diffi culty in designing the equipment to move and guide the laser beam than in the sources itself. This includes imaging and fi xturing components, as well as robust welding heads. One such head is the new FiberWeld head from
Laser Mechanisms. Designed for harsh welding envi- ronments the FiberWeld couples to fi ber lasers of up to 8 kW and boasts all internal wiring and simplifi ed plumbing of coolant. It can be confi gured a number of different ways, with straight or right-angle fi ber input, camera viewing, wire feed, air knife and weld monitoring. The optics are housed in environmentally sealed compartments to prevent contamination. Laser Mechanism notes that the system is compatible with all types of weld monitoring systems.
Laser Mechanisms 248-474-9480 /
lasermech.com/
LaserStar Technologies 401-438-1500 /
laserstar.net
O.R. Lasertechnology +1 847-593-5711 /
or-laser.com
Tailor Welded Blanks 734-289-6400 /
twbcompany.com
Trumpf
734-454-7200 /
us.trumpf.com/en/ products/
laser-technology.html
AdvancedManufacturing.org LF23
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