The metallurgical and thermophysical process in the laser melting filer wire process are complex, and the interaction between the laser - metal wire - substrate makes the energy distribution requirements more demanding. In order to study the energy coupling mechanism in the high deposition efficiency achieved by inducing a boiling front, the existing characteristics are firstly explored. The author studies the laser energy distribution rules on the boiling front and the substrate surface by the main process parameters and gives an optimal parameter adjustment range theoretically, which has a guiding significance for the actual machining process. In addition, comparing the heat conduction loss of the new method and the common additive manufacturing process (feeding solid wire into the melting pool of substrate), the calculating result reveals that the new additive manufacturing method proposed by our group plays a more positive role on improving the energy coupling efficiency.
Femtosecond laser has been widely utilized for modification of crystal structure to achieve desired functions. However, the effect of crystallographic orientation on the induced structure by femtosecond laser processing has yet been comprehensively studied. In this work, the crystallographic orientation dependence of amorphization effect of Si with femtosecond laser irradiation is studied. It is revealed that surfaces of different crystallographic orientations have different tendencies to form amorphization. Within the laser fluence range in this work, the (111) surface of Si favors generation of amorphization compared with the other crystallographic planes. This phenomenon could be explained by the lowest crystallization speed required by the (111) surface due to its smallest surface energy. Compared with nanosecond laser, non-thermal melting induced by femtosecond laser induces mild thermal gradient and favors recrystallization in the lattice.
Laser pressure welding of dissimilar metal aluminum and copper can be realized at high welding speed. The microstructural evolution of the weld are characterized by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The investigation results indicate that the weld mainly consists of four zones, namely (I) the fusion zone between the aluminum base metal and the interface is mainly the Al solid solution and Al-Cu eutectic alloy; (ii) the interface zone between the copper and the fusion zone mainly composes of Al-Cu eutectic alloy and the intermetallic compounds (IMCs), such as Al2Cu and Al2Cu3; and (iii) the base metal of aluminum and copper.
An optical system is designed to shape the rectangular beam which emitted by direct high power laser diode stack for laser material processing. Beam parameter product theory and inverted Kepler telescope system principle are applied to analyze and design the optical system, the fast and slow axis beams of LD stack are focused in same focal plane. Firstly, two LD stacks with different wavelength are collimated by micro-lens array respectively. Then they are combined by dichroic beam splitter. Because of the divergence angle in slow axis direction is still big, the inverted Kepler telescope system is applied to expand and collimate the slow axis beam. Finally, the fast and slow axis beams are focused simultaneously. The whole optical path is simulated by ZEMAX software in the non-sequence mode and the simulated focused spot size and optical power density is obtained after ray tracing. Based on the theoretical calculation and software simulation, we perform the experiment and obtain a focused spot whose size is 2.0mm×5.0mm with 300mm focal length and 5 kilowatts power. The optical power density can reach to dozens of thousands of watts level. We discuss the influence factors of the focused spot size, and analyze the merit and demerit of the optical system. We also point out the improving orientation in the future. The laser beam after shaping by this optical system can be directly applied to laser cladding because of its long focal length and high optical power density.
Aluminum alloys are among the most important parts of advanced materials being of strategic significance. Laser beam
welding is a fast growing technology that offers new opportunities in the joining of aluminum alloys. Alloys such as the
Al 7000 series that are unweldable with conventional techniques are readily joined by laser welding to produce welds
with high strength. However, the high reflectivity, the high thermal conductivity, the high fluidity, the high chemical
reactivity as well as the low ionization energy of Al element make the physical processes complex in laser welding of
aluminum and its alloys. In this paper, the key scientific problems and issues are reviewed and some novel processes
and techniques are introduced mainly based on the author's research achievements financially supported by the "863
Program" of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in
University of the Ministry of Education of China and other programs.
A hybrid Nd:YAG laser beam welding technique has been investigated in welding of aluminum alloy. Connecting the filler wire with one pole of a DC power supply and the workpiece with the other, a closed electric circuit is built. By this means, the wire is resistively preheated, so that less energy from the laser beam is dissipated in melting the filler metal. On the other hand, the current flowing in the weld pool generates a magnetic field and electromagnetic forces which affect the fluid flow of the weld pool and then the welding process. It is found that the weld depth increases and the weld seam becomes slender when a certain current is supplied. To clarify which effect, the thermal effect or the electromagnetic effect, dominates, welding with pure hot wire was carried out. The experimental results demonstrate that the pure hot wire addition has no obvious affect on the welding efficiency and the weld cross section, but worsens the process instability. Thus we can conclude that the influences of the current do not result from the resistive heat from the wire, but the electromagnetic effects. This new approach provides a possibility to increase the processing efficiency and flexibility, improve the process stability and weld quality, and also shape the seam cross section.
The aluminum alloy, 5A06, was used in the experiment. High power Nd:YAG laser was adopted as the source and argon as shielding gas. The laser welding of Al alloy with thin plate was a difficult thing especially in the butt form of the thickness 0.5mm to 0.5mm and the fillet form of unequal thickness case. Blow hole and pore in the welding bead and deformation, usually, were the main defects. The welding parameters were tested and determined in the study. For the butt welding, the parameters of 1200W laser power with pulse mode and 1.8m/min welding rate were used for making a full penetration of weld bead and a smooth weld surface. The blow hole and pore were easily kept in weld bead when the power of 800W and 1500W was used. It was strongly depended on the pore tendency of Al-Mg alloy in the laser welding and the unstable welding process. For the fillet welding, the parameters of 1300W to approximately 1500W laser power with pulse mode, 1.8m/min welding rate, an angle of 15 degree between laser beam and vertical plane were used to get a high quality weld bead. In order to control the distortion of plate, a special method was designed and made for fixing the parts and keeping them in correct position. The experimental data showed that the best result was got when the copper cooling board was employed.
Laser beam welding of aluminum alloys is expected to offer both the technical and economical advantages. In most cases welding wire addition is necessary from the viewpoints to suppress hot cracks, improve mechanical properties of the weld as well as to reduce demands on the edge preparation, fit-up tolerance, and beam alignment. In practice, the filler wire could be added to the weld pool either in the leading or trailing direction. In this experimental work reported, the influence of the wire addition direction on the weld efficiency and process stability was investigated by using a 5kW CO2 laser to weld aluminum alloy 6009 with a plate thickness of 3mm. Beam-on-plate welds were made either in the autogeneous mode or with filler wire AISi12. Illuminated by a double frequency Nd:YAG laser, the weld pool dynamics and the wire melting process were observed applying a high speed camera. The experimental results demonstrate that welding with filler wire in the trailing direction is more efficient and stable than in the leading direction. High speed camera photographs show that the filler wire is mainly melted through weld pool heating and plasma heating in the former case and through direct laser irradiation and plasma heating in the later case. The weld pool is of vibration when welding in the autogeneous mode or with filler wire in the leading direction. However, the weld pool is much calmer when the wire is added in the trailing direction to the weld pool.
The fillet welding of the locating stands is just a typical three-dimensional laser welding processing. It was just like the fillet welding along the surface of a cylinder shape. Experiment results showed that a successful laser welding should be with some technique and skills. So a special clamp apparatus was made for fixing the parts and keeping them in correct position. The welding parameters were tested and determined in the study. For the main part of welding, 3000W laser power, 3m/mim welding rate, a angle of 15 degree between laser beam and vertical plane were used and had a full penetration of weld bead and a smooth bead surface. For the beginning and the ending part, the ramp function had to be used to overcome the weld defects of burning though and inadequate joint penetration. Also, the spot position at the beginning and the ending in the welding process should be adapted to make a good joint. In order to eliminate the influence of laser induced plasma that produced from the surface of galvanized sheet when it was heated by laser energy, a flow of argon gas with the rate of 10 1/mim as a side gas was employed. The experiment results indicated that the method of a teaching program was not enough for having a good welding quality because of the flutter phenomena by the non-uniform motion of machining head in the processing. Instead of it, the offline program was employed.
In this paper, the results of experiment that using YAG laser and CO2 laser to weld 6009 Aluminum alloys are investigated. The experimental results show that the weld depth and area using CO2 laser are both larger than using YAG laser under the condition of the same power and the same welding speed. The reasons are analyzed through the aspects of absorption, beam quality, focal depth and plasma. The absorption of materials to YAG laser is higher than that of CO2 laser, but the CO2 laser has high beam quality and focal depth. On the other hand, laser induced plasma strengthen the absorption of materials, so using CO2 laser can get good weld quality. These two kinds of laser processing system are compared at last in this paper.
In this paper, the theory of 3D laser welding and cutting was established firstly. Then the expert system for 3D laser processing and software of 3D laser processing CAD/CAM were developed, respectively. Under the guidance of these software, with high power CO2 laser, the 3D covers of a car have been cut and edge smoothed, which decrease the number of models and shorten the period of production. With adoption of this technology, the covers of extended Hong Qi cars and furthermore Da Hong Qi cars have been processed successfully, which will bring out the innovation of production design and the revolution of processing technology in manufacture industry.
National Center of Laser Technology (NCLT) is a newly setup research center mainly concerned on laser materials processing in China. Since her foundation in 1995, NCLT has made great progress in promoting the research and application of laser technology. Here presented are some activities and achievements on fundamental research and technology innovation at NCLT, which represent the development of laser processing in China from an aspect.
During high power CO2 laser materials processing, the process will be disturbed or interrupted when the propagation plasma generates and detaches from the workpiece. This phenomenon is called the shielding of plasma to the incident laser beam. It is usually considered that the plasma absorption contributes to the plasma shielding. In fact, the plasma just absorbs only about 50% incident laser energy when plasma shielding occurs. Therefore, several theoretical modes have been presented concerning on the plasma refraction and defocusing effect. However, the results presented are not verified by experiments. In this paper, we develop a simple but effective experimental method to verify the effects of plasma on the focused beam propagation according to the basic fact that plasma sustains for a while even when laser beam moves out of the workpiece at high power. It is found that the focus spot enlarges and the position of the focus shifts due to the effects of the plasma. This `Lensing Effect' of the laser induced plasma becomes more serious with the increase of the distance of plasma propagation. We conclude that the `Lensing Effect' of plasma, other than plasma absorption, is the main mechanism for plasma shielding. Due to the `Lensing Effect', the power density on the workpiece decreases seriously which causes the process be interrupted.
A nozzle which consist of two co-axial pipes was applied to weld stainless steel with a 2.5kw CO2 laser. Helium through the outer pipe and argon through the inner one were used as the shielding and plasma controlling gases. The influences of the gas flow rate, the angle of nozzle and the gas jet position relative to the laser beam on the weld depth, the ratio of the weld depth to width and the weld formation were studied. When the argon flow rate is 10 1/min with the nozzle angle greater than 45 degrees, the plasma can be suppressed in the keyhole, and then a weld with great penetration and ratio of weld depth to width can be obtained. At a certain welding speed, there is an optimal helium flow rate to get the deepest weld. The optimal helium flow rate corresponding to the deepest weld decreases with the increase of the welding speed. However, improper gas jet position will destroy the keyhole and cause bad weld formation.
It is interesting to theoretically discuss the role of the focus position in keyhole laser welding. Based on the energy balance between the laser power, the vaporizing energy of the material, and the energy loss by heat conduction, a mathematical model of the keyhole has been set up. The model describes the relationship between the geometrical shape of the keyhole and the laser parameters, technological parameters and the specific characteristics of the metal. From this model, an analytical expression between the focus position and the weld depth is obtained, and the influence of the defocusing on the penetration in keyhole laser welding is studied. The calculation results shows that the weld penetration reaches the peak when the focus penetrates into the material by a third of the full penetration. The theoretical result has good correspondence with the experiment results in the laser welding of carbon-steel with a high power CO2 laser.
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