NEWS
Coherent CEO John Ambroseo to retire
Laser machine triples structuring throughput in automotive tool production
John Ambroseo is to retire as CEO of laser manufacturer Coherent by April 2021, after nearly 17 years in the position. Coherent has entered into a
transition services agreement with Ambroseo, who is also president of the company, which means he will leave the post no later than the 2021 deadline. ‘Throughout my nearly 17
years as CEO of Coherent, I always try to take the long view on the markets, technologies and the company,’ said Ambroseo ‘I believe this approach allows us to make better decisions benefitting all stakeholders, but this also requires a trade- off between professional and personal priorities. Having considered this, I want to shift my long-term attention to my family and philanthropic pursuits. As a result, I have worked with my fellow directors on how to best manage a leadership transition, which I am fully committed to making as smooth as possible. Until a transition occurs, I remain fully focused on our customers and the company.’ The governance and nominating committee will start looking for Ambroseo’s successor.
A collaborative project, including partners from research and industry, has developed a laser machine that triples the rate at which embossing tools can be structured for use in the automotive industry. The eight-axis machine developed in the BMBF-funded ‘eVerest’ project – whose partners include entities such as Volkswagen, Fraunhofer ILT, Scanlab, Precitec Optronik, and Amphos – dramatically increases the rate at which three-dimensional patterns can be applied to the embossing tools used to produce textures on the plastic interior of vehicles. While it takes automotive suppliers a
matter of minutes to fabricate this kind of surface using injection moulding, manufacturing the metal tools required to produce them takes significantly longer – up to four weeks are usually required just to structure the tool. The three-dimensional texturing is either etched on the tool in dozens of individual steps, or created by means of a laser process with ablation rates in the region of approximately 1mm³/min. Since January 2016 the partners of the
eVerest research project – set to conclude on 30 June – have been radically improving the throughput of the laser structuring technology used in such applications, while also increasing its resolution to the micrometre regime. The project is. The partners were able to achieve this by bringing together a number of technologies in the new machine. An innovative scanner solution from
Scanlab was used to reduce the dead times in previously-used scan paths, which led to a tripling of the laser structuring throughput. A powerful, actively-cooled fibre-coupled USP laser from Amphos was also incorporated, to offer higher processing precision, which enabled the surface roughness of produced textures to be reduced to less than 0.5µm. In addition, the partners included two fibre-coupled OCT systems from Precitec Optronik for quality assurance purposes – both during and after processing. The individual components were incorporated into a machine based on the Lasertec 125 from DMG Mori. The resultant system is easy to operate without requiring any specialist expertise, facilitated by special software tools developed at RWTH Aachen University, which enable the user to simulate the desired structures on the surfaces and visualise their appearance in real time. The technology is now being tested in collaboration with partners at Volkswagen.
Scientists’ three-year dataset to improve welding simulations
Data collected by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) over the past three years is now being used to improve laser welding simulations, which could lead to a better understanding of the process in industry. Simulations enable
manufacturers to obtain a better understanding of a process by helping them predict what kinds of results can be expected when using different materials and parameters. To make such computer
models however, data is needed from past experiments. Currently, that data is spread across hundreds of studies, representing decades of work from dozens of laboratories. Piecing this information together requires introducing a lot of what NIST physicist Brian Simonds calls ‘fudge factors’. ‘Modellers look through
all these resources from different labs for different materials, and they kludge them together in a way that they think is
6 LASER SYSTEMS EUROPE SUMMER 2019
most applicable to their experiment,’ he said. ‘And they say, “It’s close enough”. But they don’t really know.’ Therefore the NIST team
is attempting to build a much firmer foundation for a model, using data they say is more accurate and comprehensive than any previously collected. The data, collected over three years, encompasses everything a welding simulator would need – the amount of power hitting the metal, the amount of energy the metal is
absorbing, and the amount of material evaporating from the metal as it is heated, all in real time. The information is now
starting to be used by computer modelers to improve simulations of laser welding processes ‘Our results are now
mature enough to where academic researchers are starting to use our data to thoroughly test their computer models in a way that they just haven’t been able to do before, because this kind of data hasn’t been available,’ confirmed Simonds. The researchers
believe the ultimate goal for industry is that if a manufacturer has an idea about something they want to make, they can input that information into a computer which can then tell them exactly how to make it.
@lasersystemsmag |
www.lasersystemseurope.com
NIST
Fraunhofer ILT
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