Laser welding is not as prevalent as technologies like MIG, TIG and arc welding. That’s mainly because until recently, it required major investments.
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Around the year however, fiber laser technology made important advances, drastically bringing down costs. And for the last 18 years, further advances have continued to drive down production costs and the cost of ownership of laser welding machines.
We’ve reached a time where laser welding is not only viable for high-volume production lines, but also for all types of manufacturers. We’re even seeing a rise in handheld devices.
With laser welding being so accessible, now is a good time to explore this proven process that promises precision, speed, and cost effectiveness.
Table of Contents
Laser welding is a precise process that produces very little deformation compared to traditional welding methods. It uses a high-energy laser beam to fuse metals together, creating a strong metallurgical bond. As the energy from the laser beam is absorbed by the surface, the heat causes the surface to melt, forming a molten pool that resolidifies in a few milliseconds.
Think of laser welding like a magnifying glass and the sun. If you focus enough energy on a metal surface, you can melt it—and even vaporize it in some cases.
The power density is very high, resulting in a concentrated heat source of millions of watts per cm2. For a fast laser welding speed or a deep penetration, more laser power is needed. Laser power is the main factor that drives up the cost of a machine.
Laser welding can be used on any material that can melt and resolidify. This means that it is not only used to weld metals like aluminum, copper, and stainless steel, but also other types of materials, including certain types of thermoplastics, glasses, and composites.
Image courtesy of Mammoth Memory.
Conduction welding (left) and Keyhole welding (right). Image courtesy of The Fabricator.
The two main types of laser welding processes—conduction welding and keyhole welding—work differently.
Conduction welding is a soft process where the laser beam slowly melts the metal. During this type of welding, the metal’s temperature goes beyond its fusion point and achieves the liquid state but never goes into the gaseous state. Heat transfer within the metal is similar in all directions.
Conduction welding is slower but generates higher-quality results with little or no spatter and low fumes.
Keyhole welding is a fast but aggressive process that melts and vaporizes the metal, digging deeper into the material. The metal reaches its fusion temperature and even its vaporization temperature in some areas. As a result, part of the melting pool is in the gaseous state and can cause spatter. Heat transfer within the metal is mostly perpendicular to the laser beam.
Keyhole welding is ideal for high-volume production lines because it is faster, but it can lead to porosity and a higher heat affected zone (HAZ).
Laser welding of dissimilar metals is possible, but it is not always easy or feasible. Different metals have different fusion temperatures, absorb a different percentage of light, and conduct heat at different rates.
When laser welding dissimilar metals, the two metals do not merge into a homogeneous mixture but rather join at the interface between the two metals. This creates a joint that is not as structurally strong as when welding the same metal.
To address this issue, two strategies are available:
The first experiments with laser welding go back to the s—shortly after Ted Maiman built the first laser. But it wasn’t until , after researchers at the Battelle Memorial Institute did a demonstration of laser welding, that manufacturers began to see real potential for industrial applications.
To understand how this process has come to hold such an important place in manufacturing, we need to go back to the invention of the laser itself. Here are key technological advancements that have shaped the development and adoption of laser welding as we know it today.
Laser welding technology continues to evolve on a wide range of aspects, including in terms of laser power, optical components, beam quality, scanning heads, and computer control systems.
Fiber lasers are the most prevalent types of lasers used for welding, but other types of lasers can be used as well, including blue lasers, green lasers, CO2 lasers, Nd:YAG lasers, and diode lasers.
Let’s look at each type of laser to understand how they can be used for welding.
Type of Laser Characteristics Fiber LaserWhen choosing a type of laser, one of the important factors to consider is its wavelength. Each type of metal absorbs and reflects wavelengths at varying percentages. If a wavelength is absorbed well, less laser power is needed.
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The graph below provides an overview of common types of metals and their absorption spectrum for different wavelengths.
Image courtesy of Novika Solutions.
Laser welding offers a wide range of advantages compared to other methods like MIG, TIG, and arc welding. Let’s look at the most important ones.
There are not many disadvantages to laser welding, but they are still important to consider and address. Let’s look at them more closely.
Laser safety is a serious issue during welding. The laser beam and its reflection can cause eye injuries, skin burns, and fire hazards. Ideally, the laser is enclosed in a class-1 laser safety enclosure that contains the laser beam and its reflections.
For some applications, this can cause headaches. Large parts and structures such as ships can be difficult to contain in an enclosure. Other solutions than enclosures can be explored to contain the beam (for example, some solutions use clamping tools to block the beam).
Handheld devices can be dangerous for operators who need to wear PPE and follow laser safety control measures.
The initial investment can be pretty high too. Even if their cost keeps going down, lasers are still more expensive to acquire than alternatives. Add to this that most manufacturers are seeking automated solutions, and you’re looking at a serious investment.
This battery laser machine is a fully enclosed solution that overcomes the challenges of welding batteries such as clamping adaptability, quality, and speed. It uses SCARA robots to perform clamping with high speed and precision.
This handheld system is an example of how laser welding products are becoming more accessible to a wider range of manufacturers.
This machine demonstrates the ease of automation of laser welding, featuring remote welding, rotating fixtures, and robot handling of the laser head.
For large parts like car frames, enclosing the welding process can be problematic in terms of space usage and cost. This machine addresses this problem by enclosing the beam and its reflections with a well-designed clamping tool. This provides complete laser safety without the need for an enclosure.
With its precision, speed, and high level of control, laser welding offers amazing possibilities. For manufacturers new to this technology, it’s important to discuss your application with an expert who can help you:
If you have a laser welding application for batteries, contact a Laserax expert to discuss your needs.
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Laser welding is an important technique in high-tech manufacturing and engineering, and its popularity is only growing by the day. It offers lots of advantages over traditional welding techniques, such as the ability to weld all sorts of materials, and can create clean, strong welds quickly and precisely. The process has been adopted in aerospace, automotive, and medical, and it’s widely used to make electronics, too. This article will discuss all the ways in which laser welding can be used, its pros and cons, and the different types.
Laser welding is an efficient and quite gentle method that joins metal parts with a high-intensity light beam that causes the materials to melt and fuse together when cool and dry. The equipment used is either a large stationary machine or a hand-held torch, similar to stick welding. The process is easy to automate and delivers high-volume production and consistent quality that you could only really achieve with spot welding via other methods. Sometimes a metal filler is used for extra bonding power, but this isn’t always necessary. The laser welding beam is typically generated by a solid-state, fiber, or CO2 laser, each of which has its own advantages over the other (we’ll talk more about this a little further down).
At the beam’s focus point, the metal reaches its melting point and forms a localized pool, into which the filler rod can be melted as required. The laser beam is then moved along the surface of the joint. This melts a leading edge and leaves the molten, fused trailing edge of the pool to cool and solidify. In a successful weld, the cooled metal attaches to both parts to a roughly equal degree and remains free of oxidation. The process’s standout feature is by far its accuracy. If you have a tiny spot to weld, you can get to it easily without affecting the surrounding material, or causing any damage to the workpiece.
The laser welding process came out in the s, around the same time lasers did. Bell Laboratories researchers were the first to try them out. They used a ruby laser with short and intense bursts of energy that were focused right where the metals connected. The desired outcome was achieved: the metals would melt and then merge. Even in these early experiments, this resulted in very narrow and detailed welds, with minimal heat-affected zones, and distortion. It even demonstrated some ability to join dissimilar materials.
Laser welding works on a wide range of materials, including metals (i.e., aluminum, copper, brass, steel, titanium, and nickel), plastics (like polycarbonate, nylon, and ABS), and even some ceramics (particularly alumina and zirconia). Carbon fiber-reinforced plastics are amenable to this technique, and there’s some advanced research and early success in laser welding metal parts to carbon fiber composites. It can even weld materials with differing thicknesses and properties together—something that can’t be said of most other welding techniques.
Whether or not you can weld something with this method will depend on the material’s physical properties; for instance, its melting temperature, albedo, thermal conductivity, and the point at which it melts just before it starts to char. The operator will need quite a bit of experience to use it properly, efficiently, and safely, especially for highly reflective materials, but practice makes perfect! (Some training wouldn’t go amiss, either).
The equipment for this welding method, however, is rather expensive and costs more than electrical or traditional thermal welding machinery. Some laser welding machines are also high maintenance, further increasing the cost. Though laser welding is effective on a vast range of materials, many plastics and ceramics cannot be welded for thermal and chemical reasons. Also, if you’re not very careful and don’t wear all the correct safety gear, laser welding can be dangerous (we’re talking burns and eye injuries … not nice).
The laser welding process is best suited to thin and light applications with very close-fitting parts that the optical parts can easily access. It is not currently well adapted to heavy-duty roles such as shipbuilding. It’s also less forgiving of contaminants, surface oxidation, and gaps between parts than traditional processes. In addition, the material edges must be close-fitting and smooth for good results.
There are several different laser welding options to choose from. You’ll find them listed below.
The types of lasers used in laser welding are listed below: