TY - JOUR

T1 - Efficient air flow control for remote laser beam welding

AU - Mahrle, Achim

AU - Borkmann, Madlen

AU - Beyer, Eckhard

AU - Leyens, Christoph

AU - Hustedt, Michael

AU - Hennigs, Christian

AU - Brodeßer, Alexander

AU - Walter, Jürgen

AU - Kaierle, Stefan

N1 - Funding Information: The work presented here was performed in close collaboration by the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH) and the Fraunhofer IWS Dresden as part of the publicly funded research project “Steigerung von Prozessstabilität und Schweißnahtqualität beim Remote-Laserschweißen durch gezielte Strömungs-führung mittels Anlagenadaption” (RemoStAad), with the reference number IGF 18149 BG. The authors acknowledge the financial and administrative support by the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi), the Arbeitsgemeinschaft industrieller For-schungsvereinigungen “Otto von Guericke e.V.” the Forschungskuratorium Maschinenbau e.V. (FKM), the Verein Deutscher Maschinen und Anlagenbau (VDMA), and the Forschungsvereinigung Schweißen und verwandte Verfahren e.V.

PY - 2018/8/1

Y1 - 2018/8/1

N2 - Efficient air flow control plays a crucial role for the reliability of remote laser beam welding applications. Local air flows are helpful to suppress unfavorable interactions between laser radiation and welding fumes as a result of absorption and/or scattering effects. On the other hand, local and additional global flows have to be applied for emission control to protect optical components and workpieces from contamination and to avoid harmful air pollution of the atmosphere. However, the appropriate design of complex air flow systems under the additional condition of preferably low overall gas consumption is still a challenging task because a high number of decisive factors and a multitude of possible interactions complicate the pure empirical selection and positioning of suitable flow components and the adjustment of the numerous control parameters. This paper presents the results of a combined and complementary approach of experimental and theoretical investigations to meet these challenges. The experimental work was focused on the aspects of interaction mechanisms between the laser beam and the welding fume. Besides the characterization of process emissions, some of the requirements of stable remote processing with maximum penetration depth are revealed. In contrast, the theoretical work describes a general methodology on how to support the optimization of the cabin air flow by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models in combination with Design-of-Experiment (DoE) approaches.

AB - Efficient air flow control plays a crucial role for the reliability of remote laser beam welding applications. Local air flows are helpful to suppress unfavorable interactions between laser radiation and welding fumes as a result of absorption and/or scattering effects. On the other hand, local and additional global flows have to be applied for emission control to protect optical components and workpieces from contamination and to avoid harmful air pollution of the atmosphere. However, the appropriate design of complex air flow systems under the additional condition of preferably low overall gas consumption is still a challenging task because a high number of decisive factors and a multitude of possible interactions complicate the pure empirical selection and positioning of suitable flow components and the adjustment of the numerous control parameters. This paper presents the results of a combined and complementary approach of experimental and theoretical investigations to meet these challenges. The experimental work was focused on the aspects of interaction mechanisms between the laser beam and the welding fume. Besides the characterization of process emissions, some of the requirements of stable remote processing with maximum penetration depth are revealed. In contrast, the theoretical work describes a general methodology on how to support the optimization of the cabin air flow by means of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models in combination with Design-of-Experiment (DoE) approaches.

KW - air flow control

KW - computational fluid dynamics (CFD)

KW - design-of-experiment (DoE) approach

KW - photon-particle interactions

KW - remote laser beam welding

KW - welding fume

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048603003&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.2351/1.5040613

DO - 10.2351/1.5040613

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85048603003

VL - 30

JO - Journal of laser applications

JF - Journal of laser applications

SN - 1042-346X

IS - 3

M1 - 032413

ER -