Laser beam welding (LBW) is one of the most important manufacturing processes used for joining of materials. It is also a remarkably complicated, nonlinear operation involving extremely high temperatures. Since its invention more than two decades ago, laser beam welding has been more of an art than a science. Laser welding of austenitic stainless steel AISI 304 the candidate material of this re...

A two-dimensional thermal elasto-plastic numerical model is developed by finite element method to analyze and compare the mechanical driving factor for heat affected zone (HAZ) liquation cracking during laser welding and hybrid laser-arc welding techniques. Calculations of transient temperatures and cooling rates are used in conjunction with solidification theory to analyze weld pool characteri...

We investigate the problem of dispatching arc welding robots in car body manufacturing. Such arc welding robots receive their energy from expensive laser sources. Laser sources can be shared among the robots. However, this requires that the robots are scheduled because each laser source can only be used by one robot at a time. We want to compute the minimal number of laser sources necessary to ...

Lasers have been employed in a variety of welding applications for many years. And, as laser technology further develops and diversifies, its uses in welding continue to expand. This article provides an overview of high power lasers in keyhole welding. It then examines the characteristics and advantages of fiber laser sources for welding from Coherent | Rofin, in particular, and review a specif...

Welding with laser beams is an innovative technique, which is leads to higher penetration depth and a narrower seam compared to conventional welding techniques. One significant criterion of the quality of a junction is the penetration depth. Within this article a predictive control scheme is presented that optimises the process input laser power by taking the future welding speed into account. ...