One of the world’s leading manufacturers in sheet metal industry, Trumpf, comes with revolutionary news. According to Trumpf’s presentation at the ‘Schweißen und Schneiden’ welding trade fair in Düsseldorf, using lasers can bring welding process to a whole new level. Let’s have a closer look on laser welding machine and it’s working principle.
How welding machines work
Before getting down to the introduced innovation, it’s certainly appropriate to say a few words about the welding process in general and how welding machines work. In terms of sheet metal industry, welding is a fabrication process of joining metals together. It is distinctively different from soldering or brazing, during which the metal base doesn’t melt. Welding is a high-temperature technique applied for metal melting. Another peculiar part of the welding process is the fact that the joint is cooled down with filler material. Such metal joints are much stronger than the base metal itself.
Most common welding methods
- Oxy-fuel welding – in this type of welding oxygen and other fuel gases are used to weld metals.
- Stick welding – also known as shielded metal arc welding (SMAW), involves electrode usage.
- Gas metal arc welding – wire feeding gun that feeds wire at an adjustable speed and flows an argon-based shielding gas or a mix of argon and CO2.
These are just a few common types, however, many different energy sources can be used for welding. It all started with forge welding when blacksmiths heated and hammered iron and steel to join it. Nowadays, laser welding machine or laser beam welding has all the potential to become one of the commonly used welding methods.
Laser beam welding
In laser welding technique, a laser beam is used to join pieces of metal. Laser beam represents a concentrated source of heat allowing to produce deep welds. Automated process of laser welding is commonly used in high volume productions, such as automotive industry. Deep penetration welding produces deep, narrow, high-strength weld seams. It can be used with both thin and thick-walled metal sheets, and it gets the job done fast. Laser welding method has the ability to almost eliminate the post-processing and accelerate the joining process.
Heat conduction welding
Choice of laser welding method depends on the metal parts you’re processing as some methods are more suitable and economical than others. Heat conduction welding is a favorable method for any thin metal parts since the seams produced with this type of welding have very high surface quality. If the final parts claim superior aesthetic finish, heat conduction welding should be the first choice. On many occasions, there is no need for further grinding and polishing of metal joint. Since this method requires less post-processing, it considerably reduces production cost per part.
Advantages of laser welding machine
- Smooths out any unevenness during the welding process and closes gaps up to one millimeter wide.
- Can be used with both thin and thick-walled metals
- Laser welding produces highly strong weld seams
- Lower heat input during laser welding allowing to reduce metal deformation
- Requires less finishing work, hence cutting down costs for further polishing or grinding
- Ability to cut down production costs per part
- High return investment – investing into laser beam welding technology quickly pays off