• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.175-183
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• 2001

Various welding processes are now available for end cap closure of nuclear fuel element such as TG(Tungsten Inert Gas) welding, magnetic resistance welding and laser welding. Even though the resistance and TIG welding processes are widely used for manufacturing commercial fuel elements, they can not be recommended for the remote seal welding of a fuel element at a hot cell facility due to the complexity of electrode alignment, difficulity in the replacement of parts in the remote manner and a large heat input for a thin sheath. Therefore, the Nd:YAG laser system using optical fiber transmission was selected for Zircaloy-4 end cap welding inside hot cell. The laser welding apparatus was developed using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser of 500 watt average power with optical fiber transmission. The weldability of laser welding was satisfactory with respect to the microstructures and mechanical properties comparing with TIG and resistance welding. The optimum operation processes of laser welding and the optical fiber transmission system for hot cell operation in a remote manner have been developed The effects of irradiation on the properties of the laser apparatus were also being studied.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Precision Engineering Conference
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• 2013.05a
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• pp.725-726
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• 2013

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.28-33
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• 2013

The effects of laser welding beam quality is very large. However, not an analysing case was found for the difference on the plasma emission signal during laser welding according to the beam quality. Therefore, in this study, we compared and evaluated penetration and signal change according to the beam quality at the a similar wavelength band by using a fiber laser and Nd:YAG laser. In addition, we took high speed videography in order to make sure that FFT analysis reflects the actual motion period of keyhole and found the period of video analysis and FFT mostly matched. As a result, it is expected to secure higher reliability than evaluating signal intensity when appling FFT to monitoring.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.41 no.12
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• pp.51-57
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• 2004

A simple fiber length measurement technique has been demonstrated by using a self-seeding laser oscillation of a Fabry-Perot laser diode. We induced a self-seeding laser oscillation through a closed-loop by adjusting the modulation frequency of a Fabry-Peort laser diode when the output optical pulse of the laser reinjected into the laser after passing through the closed-loop. The length of a fiber-under-test was calculated from the difference between my two modulation frequencies at which self-seeding laser oscillation occurs at a specific mode. We have experimentally confirmed the technique for various fiber lengths from 0.1 km to 75 km. The relative error between the measurement result of the proposed technique and that of a commercial instrument was less than 0.24 %. The repeatability of the proposed technique was better than 0.1 %.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.200-206
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• 2014

In this paper, using the value theoretically calculated to emit multidirectionally a beam coming into an optical fiber with diameter of $125{\mu}m$, we modeled and produced a cone-shaped structure at the distal end of the fiber. A numerical simulation was performed for an optical fiber tip in which all incident beams were totally reflected and emitted toward the side, as well as for an optical fiber tip from which the beams could be emitted forward and sideways simultaneously. We produced multidirectional-firing optical fiber tips based on the simulation result and model. Laser fabrication of the optical fiber was done by processing a cone-shaped structure at the distal end of an optical fiber with diameter of $125{\mu}m$ using a femtosecond pulsed laser and polishing the processed surface with a $CO_2$ laser. We also conducted an analysis to compare experimental and simulation results.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Automotive Engineers
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.35-44
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• 2009

The purpose of this paper is to describe experimental results about the T-joint welding of the high power continuous wave (CW) fiber laser for SAPH steel plate for seat frame of car. The seat rail is a part of seat frame of cars. The assembling method is mostly fix up using a bolt and nut. But this assembling method has many demerits in productivity such as increasing work process and material cost. This paper presents an experimental study about Laser T-Joint weldability of seat rail. Laser welding has many advantages in lightness and saving material costs of seat frame. The laser beam was moved along the work pieces by six axis robot with process optical fiber. The laser beam is focused with a welding head within incident angle $15{\sim}45^{\circ}$ for the purpose of the T-joint welding through two side full penetration. The range of the root gap size is less than ${\leq}0.4mm$. Optical microscopy SEM were performed to observe the micro structures and determine the structures of welded zone.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.49-54
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• 2021

In this paper, we design and construct the equipment to manufacture large-diameter optical fiber end caps, which are the core parts of high-power fiber lasers, and we fabricate large-diameter optical fiber end caps using the home-made equipment. This equipment consists of a CO2 laser as a fusion-splice heat source, a precision stage assembly for transferring the position of a large-diameter optical fiber and an end cap, and a vision system used for alignment when the fusion splice is interlocked with the stage assembly. The output of the laser source is interlocked with the stage assembly to control the output, and the equipment is manufactured to align the polarization axis of the large-diameter polarization-maintaining optical fiber with the vision system. Optical fiber end caps were manufactured by laser fusion splicing of a large-diameter polarization-maintaining optical fiber with a clad diameter of 400 ㎛ and an end cap of 10×5×2 ㎣ (W×D×H) using home-made equipment. Signal-light insertion loss, polarization extinction ratio, and beam quality M2 of the fabricated large-diameter optical fiber end caps were measured to be 0.6%, 16.7 dB, and 1.21, respectively.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.865-872
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• 2017

For more than 10 years, the laser process has been studied for dismantling work; however, relatively few research works have addressed the effect of high-power fiber laser cutting for thick sections. Since in the nuclear sector, a significant quantity of thick material is required to be cut, this study aims to improve the reliability of laser cutting for such work and indicates guidelines to optimize the cutting procedure, in particular, nozzle combinations (standoff distance and focus position), to minimize waste material. The results obtained show the performance levels that can be reached with 10 kW fiber lasers, using which it is possible to obtain narrower kerfs than those found in published results obtained with other lasers. Nonetheless, fiber lasers appear to show the same effects as those of $CO_2$ and ND:YAG lasers. Thus, the main factor that affects the kerf width is the focal position, which means that minimum laser spot diameters are advised for smaller kerf widths.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.125-130
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• 1994

A new cavity configuration for passive mode locking of fiber laser is proposed and demonstrated. It consists of a dichroic mirror at one end of the cavity, and a nonlinear loop mirror, which is a Sagnac loop, at the other end. The experimental observations are described for both Er-doped fiber laser and Nd-doped fiber laser. laser.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.85-95
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• 1997

This study is to investigate the optimum conditions of Nd:YAG laser beam welding for Zircaloy-4 end cap closure by optical fiber transmission. Laser welding parameters which affect the penetration depth and bead width were experimentally examined using the various beam radius by the beam quality analyzer, joint geometries of end cap and the laser parameters which mean pulse width, repetition rate and pulse energy. Also, an optimum welding speed and the effect of assistant gas with varying the flow rate of He were investigated. We found that the laser average power for the end cap welding will be 230W and rotation speed must not exceed 8 RPM, the best position of focus using optical fiber with 600.mu.m will be 2 to 3mm below the surface of the material.