Morten Kristiansen

Flexible Laser Metal Cutting: An Introduction to the ROBOCUT Laser Cutting Technique

This paper describes a new flexible and fast approach to laser cutting called ROBOCUT. Combined with CAD/CAM technology, laser cutting of metal provides the flexibility to perform one-of-a-kind cutting and hereby realises mass production of customised products. Today’s laser cutting techniques possess, despite their wide use in industry, limitations regarding speed and geometry. Research trends point towards remote laser cutting techniques which can improve speed and geometrical freedom and hereby the competitiveness of laser cutting compared to fixed-tool-based cutting technology such as punching. This paper presents the concepts and preliminary test results of the ROBOCUT laser cutting technology, a technology which potentially can revolutionise laser cutting.

Joining of multiple sheets in a butt-joint configuration using single pass laser welding with multiple spots

The introduction of high-power single mode fiber lasers has given deeper and narrower welds than previously seen using lasers. In some cases, the weld becomes too narrow and must be expanded to fit the geometrical shape of a given welding task. Instead of using only one beam, it was suggested to split the beam into multiple spots placed in a prespecified pattern. In this way, the dimensions of the weld pool could be controlled. In this work, the spots are placed on a row perpendicular to the welding direction. This provided the ability to control the final weld face by controlling the width and depth of penetration independent of each other with minimum heat input. An examination was conducted on how the weld cross section is influenced by spot distance, number of spots, power, and focus. It is shown that a weld seam can be widened in steps by using multiple spots, and the depth can be controlled independently from the width by adjusting the laser power. It is possible to produce a rectangular like cross ...