• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.40-49
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• 2010

The Purpose of this paper is to weld a rapid palatal expander using a continuous wave Nd:YAG laser. The rapid palatal expander has become a useful treatment method for severe maxillary transverse deficiencies and posterior crossbites. Rapid maxillary expansion is a well-established method to correct transverse maxillary deficiency and arch length discrepancy. The major process parameters studied in the present laser welding experiment were the positions of focus, laser power and travel speed of laser beam. We measured the fusion zone size and its shape using an optical microscope for the observation of cross-sectional area and tension stress of a rapid palatal expander welded. Through the experimental investigation, the optimum speeds and power of laser without deficiencies of weld cross-sectional area were obtained.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.570-577
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• 2008

Magnesium alloys are potentially useful as structural materials due to higher strength/weight ratio, heat conductivity and recyclability compared to other alloys. These alloys have attracted the interest of modern manufacturing such as the automobile, computer, communication and consumer electronic appliances industries. Hence welding techniques are required to be developed for these applications. Laser are known to be an excellent tool for them. This paper presents the laser weldability of AZ31 magnesium alloy with CW Nd:YAG laser. The low viscosity and surface tension of the melt pool make magnesium more difficult to weld than steel. As a result of this study, optimal process parameters could be obtained without weld defects. Also it was certain that cutting methods had influence on butt weldability.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.49-59
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• 2008

Hastelloy C-276, corrosion resistant alloy at high temperature, is used in chemical plant and power generation industry. In this study, process parameter of laser welding for welding property in Hastelloy C-276 using a continuous wave Nd:YAG laser was studied. As the result of experiment, laser welding did not show segregation or crack at heat affected zone compared to conventional GTWA welding. The melting zone showed cell dendritic structure along with welding line. In addition, planer front solidification is occurred from welding structure, and it was progressed to cellular solidification. Optimal process parameter for butt welding was 1.2kW and 2.0 m/min for laser power and welding speed, respectively. While heat input, output density, tensile stress, and longitudinal strain was $441.98{\times}103$ J/cm2, $29.553{\times}103$ W/cm2, 768 MPa, and 0.689, respectively. Lap welding of the same material showed greater discrepancy in tensile property during 1 line and 2 line welding. For 1 line welding, tensile stress was about 320 MPa, and 2 line showed slightly larger tensile stress. However, strain was decreased by 20%. From this result, lap welding of the same material, Hastelloy C-276, with 2 line welding is considered to be more effective process than 1 line welding with consideration of mechanical property.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.18-27
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• 2007

Laser welding process is widely used in the industrial field due to its numerous advantages: a small heat affected zone(HAZ), deep penetration, high welding speed, ease of automation, single-pass thick section capability, enhanced design flexibility, and small distortion after welding. The objective of this research works is to investigate the influence of the process parameters, such as the welding fur metals with CW Nd:YAG lasers. The bead-on-plate and Lap welding experiments are carried out for several combinations of the experimental conditions. In order to quantitatively examine the characteristics of the welding quality of the cross section, tensile stress behavior and the hardness of the welded part are investigated in comparison of the Nickel coated and Nickel uncoated S45C steel. As a result of experiment, nickel coated S45C Steel showed more even weld zone than Nickel uncoated counterpart upon lap welding. Also, it showed relatively small amount of internal defects and spatter, and Nickel coated S45C showed better weldability than Nickel uncoated S45C steel. The optimum welding process upon lap welding of Nickel coated S45C steel is when each laser power is 1900W; focal positions is -1mm; welding speed is $0.9{\sim}1.0m/min$. The heat input was $4.178{\sim}4.36{\times}103J/cm^2$.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.68-73
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• 2009

Recently, as titanium and titanium alloys are being increasingly used in wide areas, there are on-going researches to obtain high quality weld zone. In particular, growing interest is being drawn to laser welding, which involves low heat input and large aspect ratio in various welding processes and can facilitate shield in atmospheric condition compared with electron beam welding. The first report covered the analysis of embrittlement by the bead color of weld zone through quantitative analysis of oxygen and nitrogen and measurement of hardness as basic experiment to apply laser welding to titanium. Results indicated that the element that affect embrittlement the most was nitrogen, and as embrittlement and oxygenation go on, bead color changed to silver, gold, brown, blue and gray. This study performed butt welding of pure titanium and STS304 by using 1kW CW Nd:YAG laser, and to find out basic physical properties, evaluated welding performance by laser output, welding speed, root gap and misalignment etc, and examined mechanical properties through tensile stress and Erichsen test. The reason particles of pure titanium welded metal and HAZ are greater than STS304 is because they are pure metal and do not include many impure elements that work as nuclei in case of resolidification, thus becoming coarse columnar crystals eventually. In addition, the reason STS304 requires more energy during welding than pure titanium is because the particle size of base metal is smaller.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1-12
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• 2007

S45C steel has been widely used in industrial applications, such as crank shafts, gears, main spindles of machine tools, connecting rods, etc., because of its distinguished mechanical property. In the convention arc welding of S45C plates without heat treatments, it is possible for welding defects to take place, such as a void or a hot-crack, due to a high carbon composition of S45C. Laser welding process is widely used in the industrial field due to its numerous advantages: a small heat affected zone(HAZ), deep penetration, high welding speed, single-pass thick section capability, and small distortion after welding. The objective of this research works is to investigate the influence of the process parameters, such as power of laser and welding speed, on the characteristics of laser welding for the case of nickel coated and nickel uncoated S45C steel. As the result of the experiment, in case of butt welding, nickel coated S45C steel has a uniform formation of welding zone and it was judged that the welding nature was better as inner defects and the quantity of spatter were formed relatively fewer than nickel uncoated S45C steel.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.55-61
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• 2009

Pure titanium and its alloys have good formability, excellent corrosion resistance and high strength to weight ratios. Therefore, it has been using to heat exchangers, offshore plants, sports equipments, and etc. As broad as its application fields, it also increases welding locations. Conventional GTAW and GMAW are very popular welding methods of titanium, but it has a high heat input and wide HAZ. It has a possibility of inducing Stress Corrosion Cracking. So, laser welding method has been using to get reliable welds by reducing heat input. Weld beads change its color to silver, gold, brown, blue, and gray by shied conditions. And the closer to gray, the more oxidize, nitride and embrittlement. The most effective atom to embrittlement was nitrogen. And shield gas flow was not so effective over the constant flow rates. In this study, weld properties of the pure titanium were investigated by pulsed & CW Nd:YAG lasers and evaluated by various shield conditions. And It is observed that nitrogen is more effective to oxidation and embrittlement of titanium compared with oxygen by oxygen and nitrogen quantitative analysis.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.25 no.6
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• pp.71-77
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• 2007

Until now, many researches on laser-arc hybrid welding processes have been conducted mainly for high power CW laser and high direct current arc to weld the thick steel plates for shipbuilding. Recently, however the usage of thin steel plates, which tend to be deformed easily by thermal energy, is been increasing because of demand of light structure such as car body in the automobile industry. Accordingly, heat sources having relatively low heat input such as pulsed laser, dip-transfer DC GMA and pulsed GMA seem to be applied more increasingly and the study about those heat sources is needed more intensively. Any heat source mentioned above can not stand alone without weld defects at a relatively high welding speed for increasing the welding productivity. This is main reason to apply the hybrid welding process which uses pulsed laser and low-heat-input GMA heat sources simultaneously to weld the thin steel plate. In this study, parameters of pulsed laser and dip-transfer DC GMA welding are studied firstly through preliminary experiments, and then analyzed in the viewpoint of their physical phenomena. Before conducting the hybrid welding, a pulse control technique is developed based on the parallel port communication and Visual C++ 6.0. Owing to development of this technique, interactions of laser and arc pulses can be controlled consistently. Using the pulse control technique, the hybrid welding is conducted and then its interactive welding phenomenon is analyzed.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.70-75
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• 2012

This study is related to the laser weldability of AZ31B magnesium alloy, an all-purpose wrought alloy with good strength and ductility. In general, AZ31B is classified into AZ31B-H24 and AZ31B-O depending on temper designation. Thus, in this study, the laser weldability of AZ31B-H24 and AZ31B-O was investigated and compared. CW Nd:YAG laser was used to produce bead and butt joints. And the effects of welding conditions on the weldability of these joints were examined in detail. As a result of this study, AZ31B-H24 was found to have thinner oxide film and smaller grain size compared with AZ31B-O. Due to such difference, in bead welding, AZ31B-H24 had more wide welding range for full penetration compared with AZ31B-O. Furthermore, it was also confirmed that AZ31B-H24 and AZ31B-O have different welding conditions to obtain stable keyhole in butt welding.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.11-21
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• 2013

As parts are becoming more complex and smaller with the development of new materials, high-quality laser precision processing is getting the limelight. Laser enables quick processing and less deformation of materials. It also enables welding with diverse materials. In this study, the pole rod and tap for the secondary battery were laser-welded using cross and coaxial nozzles. The results of the comparative analysis of cross and coaxial nozzles according to the processing parameters showed that the coaxial nozzle had more sensitive welding characteristic to the nozzle position or pressure than the cross nozzle. This indicated that the processing parameters should be carefully determined for the welding with the coaxial nozzle. The pole rod and tap were welded together in a form of T joint to improve the output of the secondary battery, and the cross nozzle had a better welding characteristic than the coaxial nozzle.