The remote welding technology has received intense attention in automotive circles within the last 6 years. 'Remote' welding means working with long focal length and moving the focal spot on the workpiece surface by deflecting the laser beam on tiltable mirror(s) Laser welding is typically done at a focal length of 100mm to 250 mm. For remote welding focal lengths of up to 1,6 m can be used. Because of the large distance between the manipulating element and the work piece a work area of about 1,5 m x 1 3 m x 0,5 m can be realized by small tilting angles of the mirrors. As it is not necessary to move the whole welding head, this structure permits very rapid jumps of the laser beam spot between the weld segments. Multiple weld locations, typically on resistance spot welds can be advantageously realised. Positioning times between the welds are virtually reduced to zero, a fact which results in a much shorter overall processing time. Here the idle time of the laser can be reduced. By using the remote laser welding, the tooling and the welding systems are separate, independent functions, resulting in total flexibility for manufacturing operations. The paper introduces in the field of remote welding and is describing the different types of Remote Welding Systems, available at the market. CO2 - and Nd:YAG - systems will be compared. A newly developed Nd:YAG - remote welding system for automotive welding applications will be presented in detail. It consists of a beam deflection optics SAO1.06 and a conventional robot. This system realizes laser welding 'on the fly' and is qualified for Nd:YAG - laser radiation up to 4 kW for industrial applications.
Nd:YAG - Remote welding with robots
Nd:YAG Fernschweißen mit Robotern
2003
7 Seiten, 11 Bilder, 3 Tabellen, 15 Quellen
Conference paper
English
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