AWL-Techniek guest speaker at EALA 2012

 
On February 7-8 2012 the EALA, European Automotive Laser Applications 2012 will be held for the 13th time at Bad Nauheim, Frankfurt in Germany.

This year AWL-Techniek will be present as a guest speaker. Wouter Zweers, Coordinator Development Engineering at AWL will present his thoughts about:
Improving your productivity in laser welding
increasing your laser utilization and welding speed with AWL’s machine concepts and fixtures

Zweers, who also was a guest speaker at EALA last year, will focus on how to increase the productivity of laser welding machines. He will present two approaches which are combined in many AWL machines. The first approach is to improve the laser utilization so that the laser can weld for a larger proportion of the cycle time, thus increasing the output of the machine. This can be done by implementing robotized laser scanner welding or by using the AWL beam-switch system. The other approach is to weld faster with the same laser machine, using optimized fixtures. Here it is important that optimal air-flow management is used.

Air-flow over the laser welding fixture has a substantial influence on the welding speed and the penetration depth of the weld, especially when welding with disc or high power fibre lasers. And this is interesting. If it’s possible to weld faster and deeper in a cost-effective way, more production and shorter cycle-times on the same machine are in reach. The biggest challenge was that there are several theories to explain the influence of air. In addition, it was unclear what the positive influence of air could be.

More than enough reason for AWL to investigate this topic further. During his presentation, Zweers will share AWL’s findings and results.