• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.17-22
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• 2013

The excellent beam quality of high power fiber lasers are commonly used for remote welding applications in body job applications. The Welding speed and productivity is unmatched with any other welding technology including resistance spot welding or traditional laser welding. High tooling cost for clamping and bulky safety enclosures are obstacles which are limiting the use. With the newly developed Laser stitch welding gun we have an integrated clamping in the process tool and the laser welding is shielded in a way that no external enclosure is needed. Operation of this laser welding gun is comparable with resistance spot welding but 2-times faster. Laser stitch welding is faster than spot welding and slower than remote welding. It is a laser welding tool with all the laser benefits like welding of short flanges, weld ability of Ultra High Strength steel, 3 layers welding and Aluminium welding. Together with low energy consumption and minimum operation cost of IPG fiber laser it is a new and sharp tool for economic car body assembly.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.24-30
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• 2012

Laser welding by fiber laser accompanied by a lot of spatter and humping bead. This is because the deep and narrow keyhole usually form due to high beam quality. So the weld bead is formed defects, because the plasma jet with a high vapor pressure make the molten pool on keyhole wall scattered. For such a reason, unstable behavior of keyhole is difficult to monitor laser welding by using the laser induced plasma. Mostly, fiber laser welding of thick plates most be influenced by this effect. Therefore, fiber laser welding has been difficult to apply the sole. Thus, laser welding monitoring based on plasma measurements have much difficulty in measurements and analysis of signal. In this study, influence of the plasma emission signal according to welding speed and laser power in fiber laser welding analysed by using RMS and FFT analysis. We can verify that RMS value of the plasma emission signal changes with welding parameters in fiber laser welding, and aspect ratio greater than 1, the peak of FFT frequency had been moved in accordance with welding parameter.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.58-63
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• 2010

A laser beam welding and an electric arc welding were combined, and the positive points of each welding method are drawn such as high speed, low thermal load, deep penetration, and high productivity. The fiber laser-MIG conjugated welding. namely the hybrid welding has been studied mainly for the automation industry of a pipeline welding. In this study, the MIG welding was combined with a fiber laser welding to make up the hybrid welding. The weld shapes, microstructures and mechanical properties for weld zones after the hybrid welding or only fiber laser welding were investigated on the 700 MPa grade Ultra Fine Grained(UFG) high strength steel. The amount of acicular ferrite in weld metals and HAZ(heat affected zone) was observed larger after hybrid welding compared with after only laser welding. The Vickers hardness of the top area of the fusion zone after fiber laser welding was higher compared with after hybrid welding.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.64-69
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• 2014

The applications by using fiber laser have increased recently. However, due to high beam quality of fiber laser, it is inappropriate to apply the existing laser welding monitoring technology to the fiber laser welding as it is. On this study, thus, we analyzed emission signal with RMS and FFT for the in-process monitoring during fiber laser welding. 12mm-thick 304L stainless steel sheet was used in fiber laser welding and the result showed as follows: The intensity changes in RMS did not clarify the distinction between full penetration and partial penetration. However, as welding speed increases, specific frequency also increases in regards of frequency analysis by using FFT.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.27-30
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• 2005

Nowadays, most automotives companies are making use of laser welding in car body assembly shop. But even though laser welding is better than resistance spot welding in many points, its application has been limited to special technology for manufacturing. The paper introduces in the field of remote welding system (RWS) to improve the process efficiency of laser welding. Positioning time of RWS between welding stitches is dramatically reduced to zero. It is a kind of solutions to generalize laser welding in mass production. This RWS consists of fiber laser, industrial robot and 3-axis scanner.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Technology Engineers
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.342-349
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• 2011

The purpose of this paper is to describe experimental results about the butt welding and bead on plate welding of the high power Continuous Wave (CW) Fiber laser for Ultra-low carbon Interstitial Free(IF) steel plate for gear part of car. After being welded of the gear parts by the fiber laser and electron beam Microstructures of melting zone had been mixed acicular, granular bainitic, quasi-polygonal and widmanstatten ferrite because of a radical thermal diffusion after welding, difference of critical volume and grain size. As a result of experiment, when gear parts were welded by the fiber laser and electron beam, the fiber laser welding has been stable properties without internal defects more than the electron beam welding. Therefore it has the very advantages of welding high quality and productivity more than conventional melting method. The optimal welding processing parameters for gear parts were as follows : the laser power and welding speed were 3kWatt, 30mm/sec respectively. At this time heat input was $21.2{\times}10^3J/cm^2$.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.175-183
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• 2001

Various welding processes are now available for end cap closure of nuclear fuel element such as TG(Tungsten Inert Gas) welding, magnetic resistance welding and laser welding. Even though the resistance and TIG welding processes are widely used for manufacturing commercial fuel elements, they can not be recommended for the remote seal welding of a fuel element at a hot cell facility due to the complexity of electrode alignment, difficulity in the replacement of parts in the remote manner and a large heat input for a thin sheath. Therefore, the Nd:YAG laser system using optical fiber transmission was selected for Zircaloy-4 end cap welding inside hot cell. The laser welding apparatus was developed using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser of 500 watt average power with optical fiber transmission. The weldability of laser welding was satisfactory with respect to the microstructures and mechanical properties comparing with TIG and resistance welding. The optimum operation processes of laser welding and the optical fiber transmission system for hot cell operation in a remote manner have been developed The effects of irradiation on the properties of the laser apparatus were also being studied.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.22-26
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• 2013

Fiber laser welding was performed on SUS Materials metal bellows. The results can be summarized as follows: When we tried to change welding focus location. we get the best welding line when focus location placed 0mm. In product welding, We could make a satisfactory product in constant area by applying optimized conditions and show a table that is able to help producer easily to apply it to manufacturing. In comparison with existing TIG and plasma welding, welded bellows by fiber laser has faster processing speed, smaller thermal effect, very narrow welding area and fine surface.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.85-95
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• 1997

This study is to investigate the optimum conditions of Nd:YAG laser beam welding for Zircaloy-4 end cap closure by optical fiber transmission. Laser welding parameters which affect the penetration depth and bead width were experimentally examined using the various beam radius by the beam quality analyzer, joint geometries of end cap and the laser parameters which mean pulse width, repetition rate and pulse energy. Also, an optimum welding speed and the effect of assistant gas with varying the flow rate of He were investigated. We found that the laser average power for the end cap welding will be 230W and rotation speed must not exceed 8 RPM, the best position of focus using optical fiber with 600.mu.m will be 2 to 3mm below the surface of the material.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.21 no.6
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• pp.20-25
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• 2003

Various welding methods such as Gas Tungsten Arc Welding(GTAW), magnetic force electrical resistance welding and Laser Beam Welding(LBW) are now available for end cap closure of nuclear fuel rods. Even though the resistance and GTA welding processes are widely used in manufacturing commercial fuel rods, they can not be recommended for the remote seal welding of fuel rods in the hot cell Facility due to the complexity of the electrode alignment, the difficulty in replacing parts in a remote manner and the large heat input for the thin sheath. Therefore, the Nd:YAG laser system using optical fiber transmission was selected for the end cap welding of irradiation fuel rods in the hot cell. The remote laser welding apparatus in the hot cell Facility was developed using a pulsed Nd:YAG laser of 500 watt average power with an optical fiber transmission. The weldment quality such as microstructure and mechanical strength was satisfactory. The optimum conditions of laser welding for encapsulating irradiation fuel rods in the hot cell were obtained.