SURFACE TREATMENT While TWI’s soſtware is not currently
available on the market, Hauser suspects that in the future, aſter having worked with clients who then want to take up the firm’s additive technology offerings – including its soſtware – TWI could end up supplying the soſtware or at least supporting it for the clients it’s worked with.
Lasers for repair Te complex surfaces mentioned by Hauser are occurring at an increasing rate in tool repair – one of the growing applications of laser cladding that extends tool lifetime and reduces overall process costs. ‘We’re getting quite a lot of interest now in a
EHLA can be used to coat piston rods with a length of up to 10 metres
stemmed from traditional laser marking and cutting soſtware. While this makes it well suited to working with single layers of material – marking and cutting are oſten only done on a single plane – the multiple and oſten differing layers of surfacing and 3D printing can be very challenging to prepare tool paths for. ‘Tat’s where some of the current available soſtware falls down,’ Hauser confirmed. ‘It’s very time-consuming and isn’t very automated.’
TWI has therefore taken the decision to
write its own soſtware in order to address the increasing variety of applications arising. ‘We’re looking at improving the automation
of our soſtware, putting our know-how into the technology and into the soſtware as well, so it’s a more automated environment to generate tool paths for the process,’ Hauser explained. ‘Tis is more of a research tool for us at the moment rather than a commercial product that we’re offering.’
range of industries, such as aerospace, oil and gas, and power generation, who are all interested in the repair of high value components, such as turbines or tooling,’ said Hauser. ‘We’ve also developed methods to deposit mixed-material systems onto the edges of box cutter blades, which are high volume, low value products.’ Hauser believes that the number of repair applications involving these lower value, higher volume products will increase in the future, aided by the generally decreasing cost of laser hardware. Te type of laser used for repair can vary
depending on the tool being processed. For small tools, very low power pulsed lasers, YAG lasers or QCW fibre lasers in the order of 150 to 300W are favoured, according to Gaebler of Coherent, whereas for the very large tools used in automotive, fibre coupled diode lasers are more suited to addressing the multi- directional cladding that’s required.’
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Fraunhofer ILT
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