AUTOMOTIVE


“Lasers are currently being adopted for the welding of bipolar plates in the production of hydrogen fuel cells”


welds. That’s not to say that fibre lasers can’t be used to weld such material combinations. Similar to copper welding, the challenges of dissimilar material welding can be mitigated to a degree using variable beam mode technologies.


Luxinar’s CO2


lasers have numerous applications in automotive manufacturing, as shown here


polycarbonate lamp fittings and plastic headlamp lenses can be trimmed with a CO2


laser


to remove any waste plastic following injection moulding. In addition, marking tyres with data matrix codes for traceability purposes is also a relatively new application of CO2


lasers


(See Laser Marking on page 46). Lasers are also starting to be used in tyre prototyping to machine both tread and sidewall profiles into tyres. This could replace the need to manually carve tyres using hot knives, which is both a time-consuming and cost-intensive process with technical limits.


Battery and electric motor production for e-mobility One of the more significant developments in automotive manufacturing in recent years is the ongoing switch to electric vehicles (EVs). According to the EV Volumes sales database, a total of 10.5 million new battery EVs and plug-in hybrid EVs were delivered during 2022, up 55% compared with 2021[3]


. Statista


goes as far as to predict that by 2030, 26% of all new car sales worldwide will be EVs[4]


. Such


soaring demand has led to the automotive industry seeking


out high-throughput processes and technologies for ramping up the production of batteries and electric motors for EVs. The laser industry has


answered this call, with numerous sources and systems having emerged specifically for this application field over the past decade. In EV battery manufacturing


alone, there are more than 30 applications for the laser[5]


. For


example, lasers can be used to weld the foils and busbars of battery cells, seal battery cases, weld tabs to battery casings, and weld hairpins in electric motors. They can also be used to cut copper anode and aluminium cathode foils for batteries. For companies such


as Trumpf, e-mobility has consequently become a lucrative market, with it now making up about 40% of the revenue of the firm’s laser division. This demonstrates the significance of e-mobility as an opportunity for laser firms.


Among the new laser solutions


that have emerged for this market in particular are blue (450nm) and green (515nm) lasers, which excel at processing the many copper components used within batteries and electric motors. This is because


WWW.LASERSYSTEMSEUROPE.COM | @LASERSYSTEMSMAG


their visible wavelengths are absorbed particularly well by copper (65% absorption for blue, 40% for green), compared with the 5% absorption exhibited by infrared fibre lasers (1,070nm). Visible lasers are therefore able to avoid the challenges that come from using the higher fibre laser power required to overcome the reflectivity of the material, which can lead to weld defects such as voids and spatter that increase electrical resistivity. While fibre lasers can be equipped with technologies such as variable beam modes or wobble-welding heads to help mitigate these defects, visible lasers can achieve high-quality copper welds at lower power without needing to employ such measures. Blue lasers are also ideal for


welding dissimilar combinations of metals, such as copper and stainless steel or copper and aluminium. In the past, combinations such as copper and stainless steel have proved tricky to weld with fibre lasers due to the creation of intermetallic phases that reduce the integrity of the welded joint. However, using blue lasers, the creation of these intermetallic phases can be minimised, or eliminated, in highly uniform


Continued innovation Both the automotive and laser industries continue to evolve together, with each continuing to look for new applications of laser processing. For example, lasers are


currently being adopted for the welding of bipolar plates in the production of hydrogen fuel cells, which are set to power the heavier vehicles of the future – where battery technology will fall short of delivering the driving ranges required. Additive manufacturing and cladding are also being increasingly explored, for example to optimise the topology and reduce the weight of structural components, or to coat brake discs in order to improve their durability. l


REFERENCES [1]


[2] [3] [4] [5]


McKinsey Center for Future Mobility: Race 2050 – A Vision for the European Automotive Industry - January 2019 ACEA


EV Volumes - Global EV Sales for 2022 Statista


Laser Systems Europe - Hydrogen fuel cells key to powering trucks of the future


For more information about the application of laser technology in the automotive industry, visit:


www.lasersystemseurope.com/ industries/automotive


THE 2023 GUIDE TO LASER SYSTEMS LASER SYSTEMS EUROPE 15


Luxinar


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