New System for handheld laser welding

The high demand for welder training in hand-held laser welding from companies shows that the process is becoming increasingly relevant. More and more companies are now using laser beam processes alongside arc processes in order to carry out welding work economically and yet to a high standard.

The ifw Jena trains welders in all processes - including hand-held laser beam welding. The institute's aim is to always keep training at the cutting edge of technology, to offer course participants optimum learning conditions and to impart in-depth and up-to-date specialist knowledge.

To ensure this, the processes at the institute are constantly being investigated, further developed and optimized in research projects. For example, research is being carried out into how new materials can be processed successfully and how welding work can be carried out even more safely, but also faster and more resource-efficiently.

Research work on hand-held laser beam welding, which is still relatively new, is currently a focus of investigations at ifw Jena. A third system for hand-held laser beam welding has been purchased in order to drive forward the further development of this process.

The LightWeld XR from IPG Photonics enables beam oscillation with variable laser power. Compared to multimode devices, the focus diameter of approx. 50 µm is only a third as large, which results in a nine-fold increase in intensity with the same power. This highly concentrated energy input makes even challenging materials such as copper and aluminum accessible for hand-held laser welding.

The system enables ifw Jena to investigate hand-guided laser welding even more extensively. Three systems from three different manufacturers with very different specifications are now available in the institute's welding laboratory. This allows research work to be carried out on the process with a wide range of parameters. In addition, companies can obtain a comprehensive overview before purchasing such equipment themselves.

This has greatly improved the conditions at ifw Jena, particularly for investigations into the optimum processing of various new materials or materials that could not previously be welded with a laser beam.

The forthcoming results of the research work will in turn be incorporated into welder training at the institute so that welders can continue to be trained optimally and, above all, in future-proof processes.

The facility was funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection.