The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is hosting an American Inventions Made Onshore (AIM Onshore) competition with the hope of encouraging more domestic manufacturing of energy technologies.
Business incubators, accelerators and universities selected to participate in the competition will partake in the Build4Scale manufacturing training program to educate energy technology entrepreneurs about manufacturing practices and to connect them to U.S.-based manufacturers.
Four organizations will be chosen to lead the training and will be awarded $150,000 each. After a year of training, the DOE will evaluate the organizations’ performance based on the revenue they generated from investors and the number of partnerships they established between energy technology developers and American manufacturers. The number one group will win an additional $250,000, and the second place group will win $100,000.
To find manufacturing training resources or to enter the AIM Onshore competition, visit Build4Scale.org.
Leading up to the Laser Institute of America’s 50th Anniversary in 2018, I decided to visit longtime industry partners around the country to get a firsthand look at innovations within the laser
Trumpf Factory (Photo by Jim Naugle)
industry. I was impressed with many of our allies; advancements in the additive manufacturing industry, significant leadership shifts and refreshing concepts seemed to be the common narrative. However, one company took the cake when I visited their 50,000 sq. ft. technology center in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, Nov. 2017. TRUMPF GmbH, a laser systems manufacturer based in Germany, designed and built this $30 million USD manufacturing facility with the future in mind.
Their state of the art manufacturing and consulting location will educate costumers interested in digitally connected production while showcasing Industry 4.0 Solutions. During my tour of the facility, Jens Kappes, the chief engineer of the Smart Factory, explained that the factory is designed to produce parts using the latest production technologies and strategies.
“TRUMPF Inc. always strives to find new ways to innovate and stay at the forefront of Industry 4.0,” said Kappes. “The TRUMPF Smart Factory is not only a showroom, but also a production site focusing on the entire sheet metal process chain. Every machine is important, but creating an optimized process where everything works together is what we call TruConnect, and critical to an Industry 4.0 facility. The ultimate goal of the Smart Factory is to help our customers introduce digitally connected production solutions into their own facilities. Our Smart Factory intelligently connects the entire sheet metal process chain, and not only improves our own processes but serves as a model for customers to improve their own.”
The organization chose prime real-estate, because according to their website, approximately 40 percent of North America’s sheet metal is processed in the Midwest. This means TRUMPF GmbH
Trumpf Factory (Photo by Jim Naugle)
can better serve customers in the U.S., which is the company’s second largest market after Germany.
The custom built edifice is unique because its architectural design is directly tied to its day-to-day functionally. They didn’t build this beautiful structure to house production, they built it to monitor, adjust and appreciate production in its entirety. It features a self-supporting steel ceiling covering a 55 meter production hall; skywalks that offer a birds eye view; and a futuristic control room that would make Tony Stark proud.
“It was a pleasure to have Jim visit our facility in Illinois and learn about our technology,” said Tobias Reuther, director of TRUMPF’s Smart Factory. “The relationships we foster and maintain with other organizations are important to us. They’re not only critical to our success, but to driving education and growth within our industry.”
I have visited many of TRUMPF’s facilities around the word and each time I leave, I say to myself, “Wow! That’s how you do it!”
From customer service to production ingenuity; Illinois is no different. It truly represents what the future of manufacturing will be and you can see it working to perfection. It’s a must visit for all manufacturing enthusiasts, laser focused or not.
Laser technology is an important key to letting CO2 emissions be reduced in passenger cars. A multitude of laser-based innovations in automobile production contributes to achieving this goal. The following article provides an overview.
Coming generations of vehicles will be far lighter than their predecessors. Laser-based manufacturing processes play an important part in this progress. Examples include parts without flanges, the increasing use of aluminum, CFRP and other high-performance plastics, thermoforming and joining plastics to metals. All these innovations help to reduce vehicle weight, in turn extending the cruising range and shaving CO2 emissions.
Lightweight Vehicle Construction Thanks to Lasers When joining sheets with conventional spot welding it is necessary to overlap the edges. By comparison, welding with a laser beam makes possible flangeless designs. Here the individual sheets are first assembled by way of tongue-and-groove joints and then welded by the laser. This offers several advantages: processing time drops when compared with spot welding; the elements thus joined can be of differing materials and thicknesses; the resulting structures have no redundant material and thus save weight. In addition, the prepositioning of the parts one with another reduces the – otherwise enormous – effort for clamping technology, permitting simple and cost-favorable clamping aids.
Non-flanged structures, when compared with conventional spot welding, offer many benefits in regard to processing time, material use and the weight.
Where greater loads demand additional stability, reinforcing structures can be attached as needed. The corresponding structures – such as the underbody of a vehicle – can be made up with less tooling. Neither are any special tools required for this purpose, which have to be manufactured in an elaborate process when preparing for production. Instead, all the required steps in processing can be carried out by a standard laser welding robot.
One outstanding example of this process is the “StreetScooter” deployed by the German Post Office. It was engineered by an academic spin-off of the Rhenish-Westphalian Technical University at Aachen, Germany, and is built on an underbody made up without flanges. At present about 40 of these microvans are in trial use, which has been thoroughly successful to date.
Using Lasers Permits Innovative Mixes of Materials CFRP – carbon fiber reinforced plastic – is also being used more frequently in lightweight vehicle engineering, especially in vehicles powered solely by electricity. Laser technology also offers clear advantages when cutting and processing materials like this. In this way the incisions are made without touching the material or exerting any force whatsoever, ensuring that the shape and structure of the material remain unchanged. This eliminates all risk of warping, even in non-reinforced materials. Depending on the production process being used, cutting and processing can take place either before or after the CFRP parts have been shaped. When cutting blanks from carbon fiber materials, TRUMPF offers the laser systems in its TruFiber series; spatially shaped, 3D parts can be cut with the TruDisk beam sources made by TRUMPF. If CFRP – or a glass or carbon fiber mat already embedded in the binder – is to be cut, then the TRUMPF TruFlow series is an excellent choice. Here the laser melts away the fibers cleanly.
Carbon fiber reinforced plastics can be cut with the laser either before or after shaping. If desired, the pure carbon fiber mats can be cut prior to or after filling with the binding polymer.
Cutting a hardened CFRP part: for materials less than four millimeters thick, the laser works two to three times faster than a water jet or milling tool and produces a higher-quality cut.
Laser light enables woven parts to be smoothly cut to near net shape. No finishing work is required for the cut edges.
A further way to improve the production processes using laser technology is thermal joining of plastics to metallic materials – without the use of adhesives. Since metals and plastics have widely differing melting points, this would not be possible with traditional welding technology. Using a short-pulse laser makes it possible, however, to create a defined pattern of undercuts in the metal, into which the heated partner, made of plastic, is pressed. Once the plastic has cooled and hardened, the two materials are joined by a form-fit connection. Examinations of the tensile strengths in such connections show that the union once again attains the strength of the basic material. Connections made this way are pressure-proof and waterproof and remain stable even under dynamic loading.
Securely joining metal and fiber composites: an ultra-short pulse laser creates an undercut in the metal part, ensuring that the polymer and hot metal fuse together properly.
The Use of Lasers in Hotforming Hot stamping processes allow for considerable reductions in the weight of body parts. However, the hardened steels are too strong to be cut in a press. Laser technology presents an elegant solution for this problem, too. The parts are cut out by 3D laser cutting, without wear and without applying force. This tremendously productive technology can also be used for 2D cutting of the feedstock material prior to its being shaped in the press. Here optimized cutting patterns can save material. If model facelifts or derivatives require subsequent modifications, these can be effected simply by reprogramming the laser robot. No new punching tools need to be engineered and manufactured.
Conversely, laser light can also be used to induce partial softening to improve the formability in a closely defined area or to reduce the hazard of the material becoming brittle or breaking. The RF generators in the TruHeat series offered by TRUMPF are ideal for this purpose.
The beam of a laser can also be utilized to remove coatings from areas in the steel sheet in preparation for later welding. In other words, ablating an aluminum-silicon coating 10 to 25 microns thick. The process can be regulated so finely that the amount of aluminum remaining is adjusted exactly, enabling precise control of the material properties. The laser systems used here, such as the TRUMPF TruMicro series, can undertake the ablation described here with a velocity greater than 30 meters per minute.
3D laser cutting makes it possible to cut parts without wear and without applying force – and at high productivity.
In the following phases in the work, lasers can also apply lettering, marks, QR codes and the like. And lasers also serve to subsequently weld parts prepared by thermoforming.
Laser Technology Opens the Way for New Production Processes Even other approaches are offered by the techniques known as laser metal fusion (LMF) and laser metal deposition (LMD). Both processes are based on concepts such as those made familiar by 3D printing and additive manufacturing. They make it possible to produce parts that could not be manufactured at all with conventional processes. Complexity is free. This is true both in regard to their shape and in regard to the properties of the materials, especially since these innovative processes even permit combining differing materials within a single workpiece.
In laser metal fusion (LMF) an extremely fine metallic powder is applied uniformly to a metallic substrate and then melted or fused selectively with laser energy and allowed to harden. When using this process to create a workpiece, the 3D engineering data are “sliced” into individual layers 20 to 100 microns thick. The 2D image of each layer is the basis for the additive build-up of the workpiece. Exact control of the laser makes it possible to fuse each new layer of powder to the layers below – at the desired places and at the required material thickness.
In the case of laser metal deposition (LMD), the laser beam generates a weld pool on a metallic substrate, into which another material such as titanium, nickel, cobalt, tungsten-carbide or steel alloys is introduced as a powder. The powder melts and forms a layer which then coalesces with the substrate. LMD even makes it possible to create multi-layer workpieces which, if desired, can comprise several different bonded alloys.
Laser metal deposition (LMD) makes it possible to create multi-layer workpieces which, if need be, may comprise differing alloys which are bonded one with another.
The additive processes described here are already available today and in the coming years may be on par with conventional processes from an economic point of view. They can, by the way, also be used to apply structural reinforcements or additional structures to workpieces manufactured with other techniques. This adds flexibility to production processes in regard to the placement, geometry and size of the supplementary structure. And since additional material is attached only wherever it is really necessary, this technique once against saves weight in the finished part.
Perspectives for Novel Concepts But even the processes introduced up to this point by no means exhaust the options for using laser technology in vehicle engineering. Rather, they form the basis for numerous novel concepts. Only a single example is described at this juncture.
Remote fillet welding makes it possible to weld two workpieces at an overlapped seam. When compared with the laser welding normally used today, the amount of material can be further reduced by shortening the flanges in the overlapping zone. The seam is then welded by the laser beam direct in the fillet created here, requiring no additional filler material. One example of an application is welding seams in the frames for vehicle doors.
This process does, however, require the highest positioning accuracy for the laser beam. This can be achieved by using appropriate sensors to register the orientation of the workpiece and continuously re-regulate the position of the laser beam.
To summarize, laser-based processes make it possible to produce vehicle bodies with lower weights and to do so in different ways. This makes laser processing an important advance along the way to reducing emission levels, increasing cruising ranges and beyond this, to speed up, reduce the costs for, and add flexibility to automotive production.
Ralf Kimmel is with TRUMPF Laser- und Systemtechnik GmbH.
These are unsettled times for global manufacturing. Setting aside the normal up and down cycles of manufacturing — a number of global factors — ranging from Brexit concerns, to economic problems in China, turmoil in the mid-East and a new administration in Washington give cause for concern about economic growth prospects.
Trumping (pardon the pun) these concerns is the current status of industrial laser activity in the global manufacturing sector, that seemingly ignoring external effects, are enjoying another growth year (revenues up by more than 10 percent) led by strong double-digit sales of high-power fiber lasers, a surge in excimer laser revenues led by excimer laser silicon of displays and significant rises in uses for ultra-fast pulse lasers.
Fiber lasers at the kilowatt for metal cutting and joining operations, continue to outpace other laser types, representing 41 percent of the total industrial laser revenues in 2016. Fibers’ 12 percent increase came, in part, at the expense of CO2 (-4 percent) and solid-state (-1 percent) lasers. On a percentage basis direct-diode and excimer lasers in our ‘Other’ category enjoyed the largest annual revenue gain (54 percent) in recent years. These lasers have been recording strong gains based on their limited base numbers in several of our last reports. But one application, excimer laser annealing of silicon (FPE) used in mobile phone displays caused one company, Coherent, Inc., to book multiple orders worth several hundred million dollars for system’s to be delivered into 2018.
The overall revenue growth for industrial lasers in 2016, estimated at slightly more than 10 percent, would in reality be more like 4 percent if we deduct the 2016 FPE revenues; leading to fiber lasers inexorable drive to 50 percent of total laser sales. US based IPG Photonics will have a record 2016 as their revenues from fiber lasers for nine months passed $726 million and, at the high end of guidance for the 4th quarter, could be pushing the $1 billion mark (admittedly not all revenues are generated by laser sales).
Joining IPG Photonics near the billion dollar level is Coherent, Inc., whose fiscal year closed in October at a bit more than $857 million, but strong excimer sales at the end of the year should assist them breaking the barrier (not all revenues are industrial laser related). Certainly after their merger with Rofin-Sinar they could be over the $1.5 billion.
Sitting atop the ‘billionaires’ club is industry giant Trumpf Group whose 2015/2016 approached the $2.8 billion mark, of this, laser technology (including some laser systems) alone topped a billion dollars.
The aforementioned is not intended to belittle a fine group of laser companies who also make up the industrial laser market, but it is these Big Three that dominate the news.
Table 1. Revenues by laser type – Source: Strategies Unlimited
As stated earlier, and shown in the table above, 2016 was another growth year for industrial lasers. In an otherwise moribund global capital equipment market, laser system sales grew in industry sectors that continue to show strength: automotive, aerospace, energy, electronics and communications (smart phones). We divide lasers into three major categories: the first is marking, including engraving, that contributes about 18 percent of all laser revenues and, because this is the most global of all laser markets, traditionally has shown solid growth in all non-recessionary years, continues the trend with a 3.9 percent growth dominated by fiber lasers at 49 percent of the total.
The second category is Micro, which includes all applications using lasers with < 500 W of power, which in 2016 climbed to 35 percent of the total laser market thanks to a 10.2 percent growth in the sector that included display applications requiring excimer lasers. Ultra-fast pulse (UFP) lasers are gaining adherents in the Micro sector and this technology will shore up otherwise decreasing solid-state laser revenues.
The laser category Macro, that includes laser processes requiring more than 500 W of power, is the largest, at 47 percent, of all industrial laser revenues, thanks to fiber lasers which make up 44 percent of all Macro revenues. In 2016, CO2 lasers bore the brunt of fiber laser’s penetration into their largest revenue market, sheet metal cutting, resulting in a 4 percent decline in revenues with an almost 11 percent increase in high-power fiber laser sales. Additive manufacturing demand for more productivity has caused a spurt in higher power CO2 laser demand at the kilowatt level which is factored into the Other category.
Source: Strategies Unlimited
Applications Cutting as an industrial laser application is the most important on two levels: revenues generated and as a user of high-power fiber lasers. Globally over 70 integrators supply flat sheet cutters for metal fabricating. This sector is key among both industrialized and emerging nation economies, therefore its growth prospects are closely tied to a nations GDP. In 2016 global economic growth dipped below 2015 and is expected to expand only slightly in 2017. Thus sheet metal cutting, a key economy indicator, had an off year in terms of growth, with a concomitant softness in high power laser growth to 3.5 percent, which was irregular around the globe.
Fortuitously, expansion in global demand for laser welding (3.4 percent) led by the auto industry and boosted by pipeline and downhole oil pipe welding made up the difference.
Non-metal processing applications in paper converting and fiber reinforced polymers combined with fine metal processing (replacing mechanical fine blanking) to add 5 percent to total market growth. Additive manufacturing, more specifically laser metal deposition, grew 22.1 percent in 2016 spurred by acceptance in the aviation engine industry, with some growth in higher-power lasers accounted for in the Macro category. Both intermediate and high power CO2 and fiber lasers are used depending on material selection. In 2016, other less advanced user industries moved more slowly on acceptance as realization of secondary post-LAM processing required ROI readjustment.
The Future Economic projections for manufacturing in 2017 are a repeat of 2016 with pockets of sluggishness (East Asia, South America and Eastern Europe) continuing. For industrial lasers we are expecting a return to recent annual trends in total market growth with a projected 8.7 percent revenue growth. Marking laser sales are expected to show a decline as unit prices continue to erode mainly in the Asian markets.
Micro laser sales will be a bright light in the revenue picture as FPE laser shipments continue and non-metal processing grows in importance. This category will grow to 38 percent of total revenues.
Sales of laser in the Macro category level off to 47 percent of 2017 total revenues, with continued decreasing revenues in the CO2 segment and a shift into high single digit growth in the fiber laser segment with a more typical 8 percent projection. Solid-state laser (buoyed by UFP lasers) should return to the plus side with a 3 percent growth for 2017. An anticipated shift to high-power direct diodes will pump up the Other category.
David Belforte is Editor-in-Chief of Industrial Laser Solutions.
Bringing you up to speed on the latest updates in laser industry news, LIA updates, and other laser-related developments, the Weekly Wrap-Up aggregates all that you may have missed this week:
Industry News:
In a recent trade advisory, OSHA announced that they will be sharing safety and health updates via Twitter. The account @OSHA_DOL will provide information to the public regarding OSHA initiatives, activities, publications, and more! OSHA encourages professionals to share these updates within their own networks. LIA will be sharing all laser industry-related updates at our own Twitter handle @laserinstitute. Check out our summary of the advisory here.
Manufacturing Day takes place October 17 This year’s theme is “Opening Doors and Minds.” LIA will be covering all Manufacturing Day updates on Twitter. Check out #MFGDay16 to stay up to date on all activities and insights throughout the day — and stay tuned for more LIA Manufacturing Day updates!
Multi-beam laser additive manufacturing process
Researchers at the Photonics Institute at Vienna Institute of Technology have developed a device that “emits super short flashes of infrared light with extremely high energy.” Combining long infrared wavelength, short duration, and high energy, the pulses are able to be compressed, without sacrificing the energy. Check out the original article on Science Dailyhere.
LIA Updates:
LIA remembers Laser Safety Community Leader Darrell Seeley. Seeley was a renowned laser safety teacher and consultant. He passed away August 16, 2016, after battling cancer. Seeley was 66 years old. Read our tribute to his memory here.
Conference News:
ICALEO is less than a month away! Registration for this premiere conference is still open. ICALEO takes place October 16-20, 2016 in San Diego, CA. Review photos from last year’s eventhere.
ICALEO 2016 is almost here! View photos from last year’s event.
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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
