Laser Brazing
Laser Brazing – and the related process of welding with filler wire – are modern techniques for the joining of metal components.
Laser Brazing in Automotive Industry
In addition to the requirements of high strength and a small heat affected zone, particularly high demands are made on the appearance of the weld seam in the case of visible seams.
Therefore, in the automotive industry, laser brazing is used for joining the visible, external parts of vehicles, for example trunk lid, roof seams, doors or C pillars.
Low Space Requirements
Greatest process stability and high availability of equipment in three-shift production are requirements in the automotive industry which are ideally met by the diode laser that is considered proven technology in many applications.
The diode laser is clearly superior to other laser beam sources because it is almost maintenance-free with a lifetime of more than 30,000 operating hours and excellent efficiency. As a comparison: Lamp pumped Nd:YAG lasers require lamp changes by trained maintenance personnel approximately every 1,000 operating hours, resulting in considerable down time.
Almost Maintenance Free
Increasingly, floor space reduction has become a must when designing new production lines. One advantage of diode lasers is their small footprint, which is only about a fifth of the footprint of other lasers in the same performance class.
Being compact and robust allows for the diode lasers to be mobile, enabling entirely new backup strategies. For maintenance work or in the case of a malfunction, the laser can simply be exchanged and replaced.
Maintenance or repair now can take place in the maintenance area instead of on the production line, not causing production stoppages and enabling a more flexible approach to service by either the customer or Laserline service personnel.
- Excellent surface quality at high processing speed
- Superb process stability
- High process reliability and power consistency
- Superior cost effectiveness compared to other laser types
- High reliability for serial production
- Low space requirements and mobility facilitate new equipment concepts
VW CaseStudy
2 pages, 1 MB
