Recent advances in fiber laser welding

Fibre lasers are innovative tools in the welder’s hands. The continuous development of fibre lasers combined with newly developed welding techniques enable the performance of technological tasks extremely difficult or even impossible to carry out using conventional technological lasers and conventional welding techniques, e.g. the welding of precise elements made of copper, dissimilar materials, thin metal foils or the joining of imprecisely made or matched elements. The article presents the laser welding process involving the use of a dynamically inclined laser beam and discusses its advantages when welding copper, aluminium alloys and plastics. In addition, the article describes the technique of integrated process monitoring referred to as inline coherent imaging (ICI), enabling the improvement of welded joint quality.

doi: 10.17729/ebis.2018.5/20