Low Heat Welding of Titanium Materials with a Pulsed Nd:YAG Laser

✍ Scribed by K. Richter; W. Behr; U. Reisgen

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 307 KB
• Volume: 38
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0933-5137
• DOI: 10.1002/mawe.200600095

✦ Synopsis

Titanium materials exhibit a property profile that is just as versatile as that of steel materials. Titanium materials therefore have outstanding properties, such as excellent resistance to corrosion and high strength values at low densities, which makes them ideal for use in the chemical industry and as structural materials in lightweight construction.

Due to the high affinity of titanium to atmospheric gases at increased temperatures above 500 C, titanium components have to be welded in a sophisticated process under inert shielding gas by TIG welding or by an electron beam in a vacuum.

A novel innovative laser beam welding process using a pulsed laser with free pulse shaping will be presented here with which oxidation-free titanium weld seams with excellent mechanical and technological properties can be produced. For this low heat welding process, the otherwise commonly used inert gas covering can be substituted with a shielding gas nozzle. The process-specific low heat input and the resulting low energy input per unit length both have a positive effect on the microstructure and thus on the mechanical properties.

This welding process offers both technological and economical advantages over the processes used up until now, particularly for the machining of complex components and for series production.