Description

Laser welding of pure copper, which is widely used in xEV components (motors, inverters, batteries, etc.), remains challenging due to spatter and porosity occurring. Recently, beam-shaping technologies have been employed to suppress defects in laser welding. Beam-shaping technologies such as near-infrared lasers with a ring beam and a hybrid method in which a small near-infrared laser spot is superimposed on a relatively large blue laser spot are used for pure copper welding. Both methods consist of an inner beam that forms a keyhole and an outer beam that provides a preheating effect, and the suppression effects on spatter and porosity have been reported. However, there have been few comparative studies on the behavior of the keyhole and molten pool and the effect of spatter suppression for these methods. In this study, bead-on-plate was performed on pure copper using a fiber laser (1070 nm) with a ring shape profile formed utilizing a diffractive optical element (DOE) and a Blue-IR hybrid laser that superimposed a blue laser (465 nm) and a fiber laser (1070 nm). For the pure copper bead-on-plate, the power ratio of the inner and outer beams and the spot diameters of the inner and outer beams were changed for the two beam-shaping methods. The keyhole and molten pool formed during welding were observed with a high-speed camera at their beam-shaping methods. The behavior of keyholes and molten pools were compared from high-speed camera images, and differences in spatter generation phenomena and weld quality were discussed.

Contributing Authors

  • Takashi Kayahara
    Furukawa Electric
  • Takeshi Tanabe
    Furukawa Electric
  • Yuki Iwai
    Furukawa Electric
  • Keisuke Takenaka
    Joining & Welding Research Institute, Osaka University
  • Yuji Sato
    Joining & Welding Research Institute, Osaka University
  • Masahiro Tsukamoto
    Joining & Welding Research Institute, Osaka University
Takashi Kayahara
Furukawa Electric
Track: Laser Beam-Shaping and Macro-Processing Track
Session: Beam-Shaping and Macro-Processing - TBD
Day of Week: Undetermined
Date/Time:
Location:

Keywords

  • Beam Shaping
  • Blue-Ir Hybrid Laser
  • Ir Laser
  • Keyhole
  • Spatter