Monthly Archives: September 2014

Discover the Possibilities of Laser Additive Manufacturing & Attend Paul Denney’s LME 2014 Tutorial Presentation

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Orlando, FL (Sept. 19, 2014) –Senior laser applications engineer and additive manufacturing (AM) expert Paul Denney will be presenting the second of two educational tutorials on Wednesday, Sept. 24 at the Laser Institute of America’s fourth annual Lasers for Manufacturing Event® (LME®) in Schaumburg, IL.

Denney’s tutorial, Overview of Laser Additive Manufacturing Systems, will be focused on giving attendees a practical guide to the world of LAM, and the systems used for the varying processes and applications.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has taken the design and manufacturing world by storm, introducing cost effective solutions for rapid prototyping, mass customization, and most recently, rapid manufacturing. Industries as diverse as aerospace, automotive, medical, dental, even jewelry and toys, use AM to create their components, with some building the entire finished product using AM.

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David Havrilla to Present Principles of High-Power Laser Welding at LME 2014

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Orlando, FL (Sept. 17, 2014) – Presenting first in what will be a two-day education track, David Havrilla will lead a tutorial on Principles of High Power Laser Welding on Tuesday, Sept. 23, the first day of the Laser Institute of America’s fourth annual Lasers for Manufacturing Event® (LME®), in Schaumburg, IL.

Havrilla is the manager of products and applications for TRUMPF Inc.’s laser division and brings with him 23 years of industry knowledge and acumen.

TRUMPF is a worldwide conglomerate widely considered to be one of the eminent names in laser design and components,  with Havrilla representing their wealth of experience in manufacturing in his tutorial presentation.

Laser welding has revolutionized the manufacturing and machining world. Allowing metals previously thought impossible to weld to be joined, laser welding has taken the automotive, medical and aerospace component manufacturing industries into new territory. The focused and precise nature of laser welding has led to breakthroughs in design, stability and aesthetics in the markets taking advantage of this technology.

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Ultra-High Brightness Direct Diodes for Material Processing

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By Silke Pflueger

Invented two short years after the ruby laser in 1962, diode lasers are now taken for granted in many areas of our lives. You use them each time you pick up the phone, use a DVD or Blu-ray Disc, print or are at the grocery store checkout. All in all diode lasers make up a market of more than $3 billion, 50 percent of the total laser market.

Of course all these are very low power applications, with power levels in the milliwatt range, not quite usable for cutting or welding. Getting to higher power levels was driven mostly out of the need for better pumps for solid state lasers starting in the 1980s. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated a 1.45 kW stack in 1990, with high power laser bars cooled by silicon microchannel coolers. The late 1990s saw the first companies producing high power diode lasers for direct use in industrial applications. Limited by their brightness, these diode lasers were mostly used for plastic welding and heat treatment. Continue reading →

Novel Multi-Beam Processing System for Laser Additive Manufacturing

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By Rahul Patwa, Hans Herfurth and Jyoti Mazumder

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes (also commonly referred to as 3D printing) allows the layer-by-layer build-up of parts rather than through molding or subtractive techniques such as machining. The idea that AM machines can print 3D objects much the same way that inkjet printer creates 2D images on paper is being described as “the next industrial revolution”1. Currently there are a number of AM processes that use a variety of materials (plastic, metal, ceramics) in different forms (powders, liquids, wire or sheets) with different heating sources. Continue reading →

AM Research Expert Tim Biermann to Present Keynote Address at LME 2014

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ORLANDO, FL, Sept. 4, 2014 — Additive manufacturing expert Tim Biermann will provide a keynote address on laser AM and 3D printing in the Laser Technology Showcase Theater on the exhibit floor of the fourth annual Lasers for Manufacturing Event® (LME®) on Sept. 24 in Schaumburg, IL.

Biermann, who works in the field of business development for LAM and integrated production at Fraunhofer ILT/ RWTH Aachen-University LLT, has also previously addressed attendees of LIA’s annual Laser Additive Manufacturing (LAM®) Workshop.

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