• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.84-86
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• 2003

The laser welding and its analysis of thin-sheet carbon steels were carried out with high power CO$_2$1aser. Bead on plate welding of thin sheet was examined to investigate the effect of weld variables of laser welding, and to obtain optimum welding condition. Butt-welding was also carried out to show the effect of gap on the laser weldability of thin sheet. At high welding speed, the partial penetration was obtained by low heat input. Otherwise, porosity was formed in the bead at low weld speed because of too many heat input. The maximum gap tolerance on laser welding was observed to be about 0.2mm. This gap size has good relationship with beam size of laser spot(about 0.3mm). The formability of welded sheet was about 80% value of base metal and the gap size has not affected on the formability, although weld quality is dependent on the gap size.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.13-22
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• 2017

In laser full penetration welding process, full penetration hole(FPH) is formed as a result of force balance between the vapor pressure and the surface tension of the surrounding molten metal. In this work, a three-dimensional numerical model based on a conserved-mass level-set method is developed to simulate the transport phenomena during laser full penetration welding process, including full penetration keyhole dynamics. Ray trancing model is applied to simulate multi-reflection phenomena in the keyhole wall. The ghost fluid method and continuum method are used to deal with liquid/vapor interface and solid/liquid interface. The effects of processing parameters including laser power and scanning speed on the resultant full penetration hole diameter, laser energy distribution and energy absorption efficiency are studied. The model is validated against experimental results. The diameter of full penetration hole calculated by the simulation model agrees well with the coaxial images captured during laser welding of thin stainless steel plates. Numerical simulation results show that increase of laser power and decrease of welding speed can enlarge the full penetration hole, which decreases laser energy efficiency.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.42-48
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• 2010

Polycarbonate (PC) and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) were welded by a combination of a diode laser and a CNC machining center. Laser beam delivered through the transparent PC and was absorbed in an opaque ABS. Polymers were melted and joined by absorbed and conducted heat. Experiments were carried out by varying working distance from 44mm to 50mm for the focus spot diameter control, laser input power from 10W to 25W, and scanning speed from 100 to 400mm/min. The weld bead and cross-section were analyzed for weld quality, and tensile results were presented through the joint force measurement. With focus distance at 48mm, laser power with 20W, and welding speed at 300mm/min, experimental results showed the best welding quality which bead size was measured to be 3.75mm. The shear strength at the given condition was $22.8N/mm^2$. Considering tensile strength of ABS is $43N/mm^2$, shear strength was sufficient to hold two materials. A single process was possible in a CNC machining system, surface processing, hole machining and welding. As a result, the process cycle time was reduced to 25%. Compared to a typical process, specimens were fabricated in a single process, with high precision.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Machine Tool Engineers
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.119-126
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• 2004

The welding characteristics of Inconel 600 Alloy using a continuous wave Nd:YAG laser are experimentally investigated. The major process parameters studied in the present laser welding experiment were the positions of focus, laser power and travel speed of laser bean We measured the fusion zone size and its shape using an optical microscope for the observation of cross-sectional area. We performed two tests regarding the tension and the micro hardness for welding quality estimation. Then we measured residual stress in welds by electronic speckle pattern interferometry(ESPI). In conclusion the optimum butt welding process parameters were 0.5mm focus position, 1.6kW laser power, 1m/min travel speed and 5.5$\ell$/min assist gas discharge.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.27-31
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• 2006

Optimization of process parameters for laser-arc hybrid welding process is intrinsically sophisticated because the process has three kinds of parameters-arc, laser and hybrid welding parameters. In this paper, the relationship between weldability and several process parameters such as laser beam-arc distance, electrode height, welding current and welding speed, were investigated by the full factorial experimental design. Weld quality was evaluated by using weight of spatters which is related with the pore area. It was found that the weld quality was increased with the increases in laser beam-arc distance and welding current, and decreased with the increases in electrode height and welding speed.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.77-87
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• 1998

This paper deals with the effect of laser welding parameters on the weld formation. Thin steels for automotive application were prepared so as to be welded with high power carbon dioxide laser system. Major process parameters were position of focus and travel speed. The effect of shielding gas was also discussed by employing the high speed photometry. Test results showed that the optimal position of focus varied in accordance with the joint configuration; bead-on-plate, butt or lap welding. It was recommended that the position of focus for the lap welding be located at slightly inner part of the material to be welded. In this case, however, it was noticeable that the weld penetration ratio, d/t$_{0}$ dropped drastically at the critical region. Results also demonstrated that both the bead width and penetration reduced as the travel speed increased. The penetration ratio showed two distinct regions; stabilized zone at the lower range of the travel spped and sudden drop zone at the higher range of travel speed. Lower limit of the penetration for acceptable weld was proved to be about 90% of the parent metal thickness based on the physical properties of the weld. Mixed gas application for both the shielding of molten metal and laser induced plasma control was recommended as far as the penetration was concerned.d.

• 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.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.58-63
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• 2010

A laser beam welding and an electric arc welding were combined, and the positive points of each welding method are drawn such as high speed, low thermal load, deep penetration, and high productivity. The fiber laser-MIG conjugated welding. namely the hybrid welding has been studied mainly for the automation industry of a pipeline welding. In this study, the MIG welding was combined with a fiber laser welding to make up the hybrid welding. The weld shapes, microstructures and mechanical properties for weld zones after the hybrid welding or only fiber laser welding were investigated on the 700 MPa grade Ultra Fine Grained(UFG) high strength steel. The amount of acicular ferrite in weld metals and HAZ(heat affected zone) was observed larger after hybrid welding compared with after only laser welding. The Vickers hardness of the top area of the fusion zone after fiber laser welding was higher compared with after hybrid welding.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.122-128
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• 2002

The laser welding in the automotive industries has been used widely for the butt joint of blank sheets rather than the lap joint of automotive body panels. But as a substitute far the spot welding of automotive body panels, the so called three dimensional laser welding will be important far the body panel engineers. Specially the laser welding of body panels with a smooth weld line is applied increasingly, for example, to the side panels. So far, some criteria of the laser weld quality was suggested by in-house regulations or national standards from experiences and/or rule of thumbs. In the manufacturing places, a go or no-go criterion is adopted because of the simplicity or a lack of rational criteria. It is true specially for the selection of the process parameters, which gives the basic causes for the good quality of laser welds. In this study, the effects of joint combination, gap and welding speed on the lap joint $CO_2$ laser welding of two mild steel sheets with different thicknesses are obtained through a $2{\times}3{\times}7$ factorial experiment. The results of the weld quality are statistically analysed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and compared between two characteristic zones, which are separated by the type of sectional shapes and the level of input energy per volume. The thickness combinations are 0.8mm/1.2mm, 1.2mm/0.8mm of mild steel sheets. The welding speed covers from the deep penetration to the partial penetration. The gap size has three levels of no-gap, 0.16m, and 0.26mm. The bead width, penetration depth and input energy per volume are measured and used as the weld quality criteria.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.44-55
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• 2003

The Nd:YAG laser process is known to have high speed and deep penetration capability to become one of the most advanced welding technologies. This paper describes the machining characteristics of SM45C carbon steel welding by use of an Nd:YAG laser. In spite of its good mechanical characteristics, SM45C carbon steel has a high carbon contents and suffers a limitation in the industrial application due to the poor welding properties. The major process parameters studied in the present laser welding experiment were position of focus, travel speed and laser power. Optical microscope and SEM were used to investigate the microstructures of the welded zone. The experimental results showed that penetration depth of the welding process increases with laser power. Both the microstructural investigation and the theoretical calculations indicated that materials undergoes a very high heating and cooling cycle during welding process. It was also found that the austenite nucleation takes place at the initial stage and the completion temperature of austenite transformation is much higher than in the case of the arc welding.