As a leader and pioneer in developing and commercializing fiber lasers, IPG Photonics’ diverse lines of low, medium, and high-power lasers and amplifiers are displacing traditional technologies in many current applications. Their lasers and amplifiers reach into numerous markets, including materials processing, communications, entertainment, medicine, and biotechnology.
Founded in Russia in 1991 by physicist Valentin P. Gapontsev, Ph.D., IPG originally produced and sold customized glass and crystal lasers, laser components, and wireless temperature meters for hyperthermia. In 1992, the company began to focus on the development of high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers.
IPG landed its first major contract with Itatel, a telecommunications carrier. The company then won a second major contract with DaimlerBenz Aerospace. In 1994, IPG opened a facility in Germany and established its world headquarters in the U.S. in 1998. In 2000, the company invested in new high-capacity production facilities in the U.S. to manufacture its own diode pumps—a major component of its fiber lasers and amplifiers. The company went public in 2006 and is listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market as IPGP.
With more than 4,000 employees today, IPG has local sales and service in more than 20 countries worldwide. Its three major manufacturing sites are currently located in the U.S., Germany, and Russia.
IPG’s vertically integrated development and manufacturing abilities allow the company to meet customer requirements, accelerate development, manage costs, and improve yields. The company is able to produce all critical components for its lasers and amplifiers, which it markets to OEMs, system integrators, and end users.
Being the first company to industrialize fiber laser technology, IPG has the broadest array of laser products in the industry. This includes high-power fiber lasers up to 100 kW for materials processing, pulsed fiber lasers for marking and engraving, and fiber lasers covering UV, visible, and mid-IR wavelengths.
Having displaced the traditional CO2 and diode-pumped solid-state technologies as the preferred laser tool for industrial material processing, IPG’s high-power CW fiber laser product line is arguably the most important offered by the company. These lasers are used in the cutting, welding, and drilling of metals within various industries ranging from automotive to aerospace to general manufacturing. Much of this product line’s success can be attributed to IPG’s in-house diode fabrication facility, which accounts for cost reductions.
In the next five years, IPG is looking toward the introduction of cost-effective, high-performance, reliable ultra-fast fiber lasers with a pulse duration in the 100 fsec to 10 psec range. With a higher efficiency, this laser advancement will enable smaller air-cooled packages. The company is also looking toward the expansion of fiber laser technology into the MID-IR wavelengths.
The improved reliability and increased efficiency of high-fiber power lasers as an accepted mainstream industrial tool has led to increase in laser adoption in the automotive industry, a trend that is expected to continue with the push to adopt lightweight materials and electric or battery-driven cars. IPG has monitored these shifts in the industry and will continue to be a leading developer in this area.
IPG Photonics has been a member of LIA since 2002. For more information about the company and its products, visit www.ipgphotonics.com.
This was written by Lindsay Weaver Burt in collaboration with IPG Photonics.
ICALEO® 2016 is right around the corner! In preparation for the event, we’ve compiled a quick guide of points of interest for laser professionals in San Diego, where the conference is held this year.
It’s time to discover the best in Electro-Optics & Photonics – and one of the most beautiful, engaging cities on the West Coast!
Find some time during your ICALEO 2016 trip to explore San Diego’s Harbor.
When the sessions and seminars are over for the day, many ICALEO visitors may wish to explore the city and its culture. Who can blame them? With a gorgeous coastline, average October highs in the low 70s, and a rich history, there is plenty to see and do while in town for the conference.
Here’s how to explore like a pro after-hours at ICALEO San Diego:
Museums of Interest
The Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is home to permanent and traveling exhibits focusing on “furthering the public understanding and enjoyment of science and technology.” Located in Balboa Park, Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is also home to the world’s first IMAX dome theater. Featuring state of the art projection systems, the theater also hosts planetarium shows hosted by the San Diego Astronomy Association. The center also hosts bimonthly workshops on 3D printing technology with San Diego State University. While the museum typically caters to a younger crowd, there is something here for everyone.
Located right around the corner from the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center is the San Diego Air and Space Museum. Charting the history of flight from a 1700’s hot air balloon through the space age, the San Diego Air and Space Museum is a celebration of aviation and spaceflight advancements. Visitors can enjoy seeing both original and recreated air & spacecraft, as well as learn the history behind them. The museum is currently hosting the exhibition Da Vinci: The Ultimate Inventor. Showcasing the art, inventions, and machines developed by Leonardo Da Vinci with a focus on transportation, military, and mechanical designs, the exhibit is sure to enthrall any visitor.
Other Points of Interest
The USS Midway Aircraft Carrier also serves as a museum featuring over 60 exhibits, including over 20 restored aircraft. The USS Midway was one of the US’s longest serving aircraft carriers, seeing over 200,000 sailors in its time. Self-guided tours are included with admission,as you make your way through the restored aircraft carrier, covering over 50 years of Navy history. USS Midway is home to multiple flight simulators and interactive exhibits, sure to entertain and educate. On average, guests spend over 3 hours on the carrier, so plan accordingly!
Activities by the Coast and Downtown
For those looking to take advantage of the warm weather and gorgeous coast, Pacific Beach is not too far away from Sheraton® San Diego. This beach town provides sun, surf, and sand by day and vibrant nightlife, after sunset. Catch waves early in the day and grab a drink at one of the many restaurants or bars, afterwards.
Registration for ICALEO® is now open. With less than a month until the event, do not delay and miss your opportunity to learn, observe, and network at this premiere laser event. Information about the event can be found at https://www.lia.org/conferences/icaleo. Before attending, be sure to check out the top five things to see and do at ICALEOfor 2016.
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The Laser Institute of America (LIA) is the international society for laser applications and safety. Our mission is to foster lasers, laser applications, and laser safety worldwide. Visit us at www.lia.org
Electro-optic and photonic technologyis expanding and evolving at a rapid rate. Disrupting established norms, innovating processes, and making new contributions to society every day, these growing fields are changing the way we see the world as we know it.
LasersToday.com – bringing you the latest Laser Innovators.
As a supporter of laser applications and practices, LIA acknowledges and celebrates these accomplishments in our newly launched Lasers Today Laser Innovators Series. In no particular order, here are three of the many companies doing their part to further the importance of electro-optics and photonics.
From life-saving bioimaging, to creating the most immersive parts of our favorite theme park rides, these notable advancements will inevitably impact some corner of each of our lives:
Earlier this year, a fiber light laser, developed by IPG Photonics, was used in a prototype 4K RGB laser projector. This projector, made by NEC Display Solutions of America, is designed for large theater screens. According to Businesswire, NC3540LS (the prototype) can be stacked into a two-projector setup, becoming one of the brightest projector options available, at 70,000 lumens. The projector was demonstrated at CinemaCon, this past April.
This year, Spectra Physics debuted Spirit-NOPA-IR, a three-photon imaging ultrafast laser source. With a peak power of > 10 MW, imaging of live tissue “results in exceptional clarity,” according to the company. This new imaging source is intended for neuroscience and other bio-imaging and expands on the company’s previous developments in bioimaging.
Photonics and electro-optics are becoming a focal point for cinemas and amusement parks, as they put a greater focus on projection technology. Jenoptik, anticipating future and current needs, recently completed a theater dome designed to test laser projection lenses. The theater hosts a screen 24 feet in diameter, elevated five feet in the air, as well as a 30 by 16 foot flat screen for digital cinema testing. Jenoptik has created a number of large-scale stage and movie projectors for 3D theaters, dark rides, and simulators. This development shows no sign of that trend coming to an end.
Electro-optics and photonics are creating a significant impact on a wide array of disciplines and industries. Outside of manufacturing and research applications, these companies are not only participating in innovative development, they are consistently changing the way laser and photonic applications are viewed in the world.
Want to learn more about these companies and other industry trailblazers? These and more will be in attendance at ICALEO taking place October 16-20 in San Diego, CA. With a 34 year history of uniting researchers and laser end users, you do not want to miss this year’s event. Click to Register today!
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In today’s automotive industry — and its high-volume production environment — laser welding has become a well-established joining technology. High productivity, low heat input, and fast welding speed are some of the main advantages of laser welding compared to conventional joining technologies — such as gas metal arc welding (GMAW) or resistance spot welding (RSW).
The Laser Seam Stepper (LSS), developed by IPG Photonics Corporation, combines the advantages of RSW and conventional laser welding. The parts are pressed together by one (Poker) or two (C-Gun) pressure pieces, with a controlled clamping force up to 3000 N (Figure 1). Laser welding then takes place inside the pressure pieces, providing a Class 1 safety enclosure. In this way, no additional safety enclosure or clamping fixture is necessary, saving cost and valuable floor space.
Total weld length can be selected from 1 to 40 mm, with or without an additional weave. The frequency of the weave can be programmed between 1 and 25 Hz. An additional fume exhaust makes sure that all fumes are extracted from the process. If it is desired to achieve welds free of oxidation, shield gas (e.g., argon and nitrogen) can also be added to the process. To move the LSS to each weld location, it can be mounted on a six-axis robot (minimum 30 kg handling capacity) or gantry system.
Figure 1. The Laser Seam Stepper (LSS) is available in two versions: The C-Gun version for two-sided access (a) and the Poker version for one-sided access (b)
Laser Beam Oscillation For overlap joints, the strength of the weld is mainly determined by its width. When conducting thick material welding or applications where increased weld strength is required, the LSS has the option to oscillate the laser beam in order to widen the weld. Figure 2 shows the comparison of two high-strength steel welds which were welded with and without beam oscillation. By weaving the laser beam the weld interface width was increased from 0.4 mm to 2.4 mm, which resulted in a shear tensile strength increase from 8.5 kN to 28 kN.
Figure 2. LSS beam oscillation comparison
Body-in-White Applications Laser welding offers significant advantages over resistance spot welding, especially in body-in-white (BIW) applications:
Higher process speeds (shorter cycle time);
Increased component strength by longer seams with higher torsional stiffness;
Smaller flange width;
Single-sided access;
Repeatable high-quality weld results; and
Low heat input (low distortion).
The implementation of high-strength materials in the automotive industry and the increasing demand for higher stiffness and rigidity require larger weld interface areas and low heat input during welding. In many cases, this cannot be achieved by conventional resistance spot welding, mainly due to the recommended minimum distance between spot welds and the high heat input, which negatively affects the characteristics of the welded material.
On Volkswagen’s current Golf VII model, LSS welding was implemented in various applications (Figure 3). Twenty-six resistance spot welds were replaced by nine laser seam stepper welds joining the B-pillar to the rocker panel. On the roof frame, four laser welds are now applied where 10 RSW used to be required. Besides the more than 50 percent cycle time reduction, crash-test performance was also significantly improved due to the low heat input and bigger weld interface.
Figure 3. LSS welding of triangle window (a) and roof frame (b)
To meet federally mandated fuel economy standards, car manufacturers are using more and more aluminum for body panels, engine components and structural parts, to dramatically reduce vehicle weight. Due to the high thermal and electrical conductivity of aluminum compared with steel, RSW requires much higher welding currents and contact pressure, resulting in high contact heat between the electrodes and the part to be welded. Thus, the electrode tips rapidly deteriorate, affecting the quality of the weld if not frequently dressed or replaced.
In high-volume production, this can be a crucial problem. With the LSS, excellent weld results can be achieved on aluminum. The quality of the welds is very repeatable and not dependent upon the condition of the tip. Figure 4 shows a 3-T lap joint welded with the LSS. The laser power can be precisely programmed to either result in a full- or partial-penetration weld.
Figure 4. 3-T aluminum joint, with each layer measuring 1.5 mm (1); high-strength steel weld (2); aluminum weld (3); and stainless steel weld (4)
Based on the experience of more than five years in production within a fully automated car plant, various new applications with different material combinations were developed with the LSS. Typical materials can be zinc-coated or high-strength steel, as well as stainless steel or aluminum. Overlap welds can be performed in stacks of multiple layers and are not restricted to 2-T configurations. The unique design of the upper and lower pressure pieces allow a reduction of the flange width from 15 mm (required for RSW) down to 10 mm, or even 6 mm.
Assuming a total contour length of 14,200 mm on all four door frames on a midsize car, a flange reduction by 6 mm will result in a weight reduction of approx. 4 percent and an approx. increase of the entrance area by 8 percent.
Large Part Implementations In some industries where large metal sheets are welded, the single-sided seam stepper holds a big advantage over conventional welding technologies. Implemented in several rail car, agriculture and shipyard applications, LSS showed excellent weld results due to the low distortion and elimination of any post-processing on the backside of the part, which in many cases is visible. Boat hulls are currently manufactured using the one-sided access picker version by a European ship manufacturer welding 4 mm thick stiffening structures to the outer skin panel.
This process used to be performed with metal inert gas (MIG) welding, where a costly clamping fixture and post-processing was required. Due to the implementation of laser welding, this was eliminated and the overall weld quality significantly improved (Figure 5).
Railway carriages are mostly made of mild steel, stainless steel or aluminum sheet panels with reinforced profiles on the inside. These reinforcements are commonly welded to the panels using GMAW, resulting in clearly visible and significant distortion. An additional complex straightening post-process is necessary. When this manufacturing process is performed with the LSS, it can be mounted on a robot or gantry system to move the weld head to each weld location. The picker then presses the reinforcement onto the panel and starts the welding process inside the light-tight pressure piece.
Besides serving as a hold-down device to minimize the gap, the pressure piece is the safety enclosure for deflected laser radiation. Additional light tight safety cells or post-processing is not required.
As a result of close cooperation with different manufacturers, the LSS has become a highly reliable laser welding tool with an uptime availability of 99.9 percent. Due to the high repeatability of the complete system (fiber laser and LSS module), excellent production quality can be guaranteed without the need for any rework or post-processing.
Michael Wiener is a Sr. Applications Engineer with IPG Photonics.
Keep exploring the latest thought leadership from LIA and Lasers Today. Read David Belforte’s recent article on Industrial Lasers outperforming Machine Tool Sales Growth here.
Take Advantage of LIA’s upcoming inaugural Industrial Laser Conference, held this year at IMTS in Chicago! For more information, including how to Register, please click here.
By Dirk Herzog, Matthias Schmidt-Lehr, Marten Canisius, Max Oberlander, Jan-Philipp Tasche and Claus Emmelmann
Today, industrial usage of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) is steadily increasing, with an amount of 67,000 t/year. Latest products such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350 in the aerospace sector, as well as the BMW i3 from the automotive industry, consist of more than 50 percent of CFRP in their structural weight. At the same time these products also have comparatively high production volumes, in the five-digit range per year in the case of the BMW i3. Therefore, a higher degree in automation and cost-efficiency is needed in production. Due to the highly abrasive carbon fibers, conventional machining processes result in short tool life and high costs.
For that reason laser cutting of CFRP as a wear-free alternative has become the focus of several research groups. Two different approaches are commonly chosen: Cutting by short- and ultra-short pulsed laser systems to reach a process regime of cold ablation, and cutting with continuous wave (cw) lasers at high cutting speeds. For the latter approach, it has already been shown that by increasing power and cutting speed, the heat affected zone (HAZ) can be reduced due to less time allowed for heat conduction. Continue reading →
