Product Code: ICAL05_506

Welding with Fibre Lasers from 200 to 17000 W
Authors:
Frank Vollertsen, BIAS Bremer Institut fr angewandte Strahltechnik; Bremen Germany
Claus Thomy, BIAS Bremer Institut fr angewandte Strahltechnik; Bremen Germany
Presented at ICALEO 2005

Latest developments in laser physics have made available high-power fibre lasers with beam powers up to 17 kW and single mode fibre lasers with several 100 W at excellent beam quality. Adding to these properties their high energetic efficiency, their considerable estimated lifetime and their compact size, they might well be considered to be a viable alternative to both conventional lamp- or diode-pumped Nd:YAG- as well as to CO2-Lasers. However, due to the novelty of the system, only few experiences on their usability for materials processing and in special for welding are existing.
On the one hand a 200 W single mode fibre laser has been used for micro-welding experiments at highest beam intensity. For a variety of materials and material combinations the process boundaries were investigated with respect to penetration, welding speed and gap bridging in overlap position.
On the other hand, after preceding work with fibre lasers with 7 kW and 10 kW beam power, respectively, currently a high-power fibre laser of the 17 kW class is used at the BIAS for developing welding applications for a variety of industries such as pipelaying, tailored blanking and welding of aluminium extruded profiles for the railway industries.