• Laser Solutions
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.21-28
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• 2008

Remote Laser welding technology for manufacturing automotive body is studied. Laser welding and industrial robot systems are used for the robot based laser welding system. The laser system is used 1.6kW Fiber laser(YLR-1600) of IPG. The robot system is used HX130-02 of Hyundai Heavy Industry(payload : 130kg). The robot based laser welding system is equipped with laser scanner system for remote laser welding. The welding joints of steel plate and steel plate coated with zinc are butt and lapped joints. The quality test of the laser welding are through the observation the shape of bead on plate and cross-section of welding part. During past three years the laser system, 4kW Nd:YAG laser (HL4006D) of Trumpf was used and the robot system, IRB6400R of ABB (payload:120kg) was used. The new laser source, robot and laser scanner system are used to increase the processing speed and to improve the process efficiency. This paper introduces the robot based remote laser welding system to resolve the limited welding speed and accuracy of the conventional laser welding system.

• 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.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.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.74-78
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• 2008

The laser welding of the car body and components has been spread in the automotive industry. The Nd:YAG laser welding system could be used in 3D welding with robot. However, this system cannot efficiently reduce the welding cycle time according to various welding sequences because the robot's moving time is same that of the resistant spot welding system. But the remote welding system with high power $CO_2$ laser and scanner makes it possible welding cycle time much faster than the robot laser welding system. In the $CO_2$ laser remote welding system, laser beam can be rapidly transferred to a workpiece by moving mirrors of scanner system. So, it makes reducing the cycle time of welding process and shaping various welding patterns easily. Therefore, in this paper, the characteristic of weld strength according to patterns of weld bead on $CO_2$ laser welding was investigated. Also, the relationship between shape of weld bead and value of tensile load was studied. Finally, the optimum remote welding condition for car bumper was investigated.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.29-29
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• 2009

On this research, laser welding technology for manufacturing automobile body is studied. Laser welding technology is one of the important technologies used in the manufacturing of lighter, safer automotive bodies at a high level of productivity; the leading automotive manufacturers have replaced spot welding with laser welding in the process of car body assembly. Korean auto manufacturers are developing and applying the laser welding technology using a high output power Nd:YAG laser and a 6-axes industrial robot. On the other hand, the robot-based remote laser welding system was equipped with a long focal laser scanner system in robotic end effect. Laser system, robot system, and scanner system are used for realizing the high speed laser welding system. The remote laser welding system and industrial robotic system are used to consist of robot-based remote laser welding system. The robot-based remote laser welding system is flexible and able to improve laser welding speed compared with traditional welding as spot welding and laser welding. The robot-based remote laser systems used in this study were Trumpf's 4kW Nd:YAG laser (HL4006D) and IPG's 1.6kW Fiber laser (YLR-1600), while the robot systems were of ABB's IRB6400R (payload:120kg) and Hyundai Heavy Industry's HX130-02 (payload:130kg). In addition, a study of quality evaluation and monitoring technology for the remote laser welding was conducted. The welding joints of steel plate and steel plate coated with zinc were butt and lapped joints. The quality testing of the laser welding was conducted by observing the shape of the beads on the plate and the cross-section of the welded parts, analyzing the results of mechanical tension test, and monitoring the plasma intensity and temperature by using UV and IR detectors. Over the past years, Trumf's 4kW Nd:YAG laser and ABB's IRB6400R robot system was used. Nowadays, the new laser source, robot and laser scanner system are used to increase the processing speed and to improve the efficiency of processes. This paper proposes the robot-based remote laser welding system as a means of resolving the limited welding speed and accuracy of conventional laser welding systems.

• 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.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Laser Processing Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.7-10
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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 are dramatically reduced to zero. It is a kind of solutions to generalize laser welding in mass production.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.82-87
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• 2011

In this study, we conducted laser welding by using remote scanner that is 5J32 aluminum alloy to observe the mechanical properties and optimize welding process parameters. As the control factors, laser incident angle, laser power and welding speed were set and as the result of weldablility, tensile shear tests were performed. ANOVA (Analysis of Variation) was also carried out to identify the influence of process variables on tensile shear strength. Strength estimation models were suggested using regression alnalysis and 2nd order polynomial model had the best estimation performance. In addition optimal welding condition was determined in terms with wedalility and productivity using objective function and fitness function. Final optimized welding condition was laser power was 4 kW, and welding speed was 4.6 m/min.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.51-58
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• 2012

To assess hydraulic connections between sub-components of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) diagnostic port plug, the laser welding and ablation cutting process were investigated in order to be applied the remote handling maintenance. In this study, laser ablation cutting, which vaporizes a small amount of solid material directly into gas by focusing a laser beam of high density energy, is adopted in order to overcome the limitation of the normal laser cutting technology that the head should be placed as close to the work piece as possible to blow out melt metal at a distance. Complete cutting of a work piece is obtained by repetitive multi-passes of the laser beam. The welding and cutting process were tested on the sample work pieces and finally on a prototype of a hydraulic connection module for remote handling. The results showed that this process can be a promising candidate for hydraulic connections by remote handling.

• Laser Solutions
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.11-16
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• 2009

A new profile measurement sensor was developed for remote laser welding robots. A stripe laser and a vision camera are used in the profile sensor. A simple sensor guided control scheme using the developed sensor is also introduced. The sensor can be used to guide the welding head in the remote welding application, where the working distance reaches to 450mm. In experiments, the profile measurement and the seam tracking were carried out using the developed sensor.