11/3/23, 11:24 PM Industrial Applications of Lasers

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Industrial Applications of Lasers

Industrial Applications
Laser is a source of energy endowed with extra-ordinary properties. These special
properties have been detailed in the earlier section on "Properties of lasers". Due to its
unique nature, lasers have found applications in almost in every field of human activities,
whether it is science, medicine, industry, agriculture, entertainment or informatics, to
mention a few. It may be brought to the notice of the reader that all the basic properties of
laser are not necessary for its use in every application. In fact, it is the application that
decides what all properties are essential in the laser for the successful implementation of
an activity. For example, high coherence of laser is an essential requirement in
holographic applications, where as the same plays a nominal role, in range finding or for
that matter in laser - light shows. In this section Industrial applications of Lasers have
been discussed briefly. Other applications are discussed in other sections.

Today, laser is probably the most versatile tool available for various material processing
applications like welding, drilling, cutting, heat treatment (hardening, annealing, glazing,
cladding etc) as well as certain very special applications like clearing of space debris,
laser balancing, remote decontamination and decommissioning of components of unused
nuclear installations, laser ablation, oil and gas exploration, automotive industry etc.
Further, laser material processing (LMP) scores very high in the processing of difficult to
machine materials such as, hardened metals, composites and ceramics to name a few,
compared to the normal mechanical material processing techniques. In this section our
intention is to provide the basic concepts rather than the details.

Pulsed as well as CW lasers are employed for industrial applications. Nd:YAG (~10KW),
CO2 (~25KW) and COIL (~40KW) are some of the most commonly employed high power
lasers. High monochromaticity and directionality of the laser gives the laser beam a small
wavelength spread and low divergence. Therefore, laser can be focused to a very small
spot size, resulting in very high radiance.

Basic laser material processing (LMP) system consists of a high power laser, beam
delivery unit with focusing arm and beam parameter-monitoring unit coupled to a CNC
machine. Delivery and manipulation of laser beams to extremely complex work shapes
and inaccessible places is a critical aspect of an LMP system. Wavelength, energy,
power, beam diameter, divergence etc decide the transmission method. Near IR lasers
like, Nd:YAG (1064 nm) and COIL (1315 nm) can be transmitted to the work area using
optical fiber cables, where one can bend and twist the laser beam as desired. CO2 laser
at 10.6μm wavelength has to use a rather unwieldy mechanical arm, consisting of lenses,
prisms, mirrors etc to reach the work area due to the non-availability of a suitable fiber
cable for high power laser transmission.

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Material properties like, reflectivity, absorption, specific heat, thermal conductivity, heat
capacity, diffusivity, melting, latent heat of fusion, vapourisation etc play a major role in
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importance in deciding the type of the laser to be used for the particular material-
processing environment, since the material should absorb the laser energy. Type of work,
speed of operation and the nature of material decide the type of laser to be used. In LMP,
the material absorbs the laser energy and distributes the same with in the material and
then the material is removed by evaporation or by melt ejection. During LMP, debris,
particulate matter, fumes etc can damage the optical components of the focusing system.
These can adversely affect the laser beam itself. A gas shield, mostly employing helium
gas, is provided as a protection from these. Plasma cutting and oxy-acetylene systems
have their own gas jets. As LMP does not have this, an auxiliary jet is provided from a
pressurized gas source. Plasma generated during the laser machining, lessens the
penetration capability of laser. It is essential to blow away the plasma for the successful
performance of the system. High-pressure gas impinging on the work piece from above
produces local pressure, which is more than the atmospheric pressure existing below the
work piece. Consequently this difference in pressure helps the melt to be blown away
from the bottom. Latest LMP systems employ a coaxial nozzle in which the laser and the
gas both exit through the same orifice.

Laser is not a bulk heat source like oxy-acetylene flame. The amount of energy absorbed
by the material solely decides the rise in temperature leading to melting or boiling. i.e. the
laser – material interaction is of paramount importance in LMP. Due to the high power
density associated with the laser, rapid heating of the region does not allow the heat to be
spread to the bulk of the material; consequently the heat is very much localized. Major
laser parameters for LMP system are energy, pulse width and wavelength and monitoring
of the same is very important. Along with these, the concept of energy balance and heat
transfer also has to be considered. Another plus point regarding laser is that it can be
manipulated to process extremely complex shapes or to reach areas where other tools
could not have access.

An important aspect in the industrial scenario is the safety of the personnel, since many
of them are unaware of the biological and physical hazards that can be caused by laser.
For details, the reader may kindly see the section on "LASER SAFETY".

Though laser is a versatile tool, it has certain advantages and disadvantages. Some of
them are listed below.

The advantages are,

High maneuverability.

Highly focused spot, where the heating is very much localized.

Minimum distortion to target material.

No force is exerted on the work piece.

Non-contact process and as such there is no wear and tear of tool.

Not affected by magnetic field.

Angular operation is possible.

High speed of processing (improved productivity).

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Adaptability with existing machines.

Ability
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Disadvantages are,

Cost of machine and operator is high.

High cost of operational maintenance.

Laser safety.

As already mentioned that Lasers have unique properties for surface modification
applications. The electromagnetic radiations are absorbed within the first few atomic
layers for opaque materials such as metals thus making it possible to put the applied
energy precisely on the area of surface of interest. Common advantages of laser surface
treatment include chemical cleanliness, controlled thermal penetration, remote non-
contact processing, and localized heating. The adjoining figure highlights the areas of
interest. There are three distinct regions – surface heating, melting and vaporization.
Processes, which come under these categories, include:

Surface Heating

Hardness increase

Strength increase

Reduced friction

Wear reduction

Increase in fatigue life

Surface carbide creation

Surface Heating
Magnetic domain control

Stereolithography

The depth of hardness is proportional

to P/(DV)1/2

Melting
Moderate to rapid solidification rates thus produce almost homogeneous structures

Little thermal penetration results in little distortion and thus the process can be used
for thermally sensitive materials.

Surface finish typically of the order of 20 – 25 micron thus reducing the post laser
processing of the work piece

Cleaning

Glazing

Marking

Welding

Cladding

Laser surface alloying

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Ion implantation

Diffusion
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Reactive gas shrouding to form nitride, hydride etc.

Vaporization
Shock Hardening

Drilling

Cutting

Some of the important features related to some important industrial applications of Lasers
are listed below.

Salient Features of interest

Physical mechanism of LMP is characterized and controlled by the interaction of laser
radiation with matter. LMP is a thermal process and the material removal is by either
melting or vaporizing the volume of interest. Optical and thermal properties of material
play a major role in LMP and mechanical properties have only a minor role. The material
with low thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity is the best candidate for LMP. Being a
non-contact process, the energy transfer occurs through irradiation and as such,
mechanically introduced vibration damages are avoided and that also without any tool
wear. The same laser machine can be used for welding, drilling, cutting and heat
treatment processes with a multi-axis work piece positioning station. This flexible
environment gives LMP its unique nature, hitherto unavailable in mechanical systems.
The most interesting feature of LMP is that it is a multidimensional process. Drilling can
be considered as a single dimensional process, since laser beam is stationary relative to
work piece. If we take the cutting process, laser and the work piece are in relative motion
perpendicular to each other. This situation can be considered as a two dimensional
process. If more than one laser beam is employed, each laser will have a two
dimensional nature with one edge being common. This situation makes the LMP as a
three dimensional process.

To identify the specific high power laser for a particular industrial application requires an
understanding of the interaction of laser beam with the work piece and the concept of
heat transfer. The absorption of laser energy by the material decides the temperature rise
in the material. Type of operation like drilling, cutting, welding etc along with the speed of
operation is also of importance in deciding the types of laser to be used. It is not only the
type of laser but also its nature such as wavelength, pulsed or continuous, spot size,
divergence etc are also very significant. Further, monitoring of the laser beam parameters
like power, intensity distribution and beam diameter is also very important.

Though laser beams can be manipulated to process extremely complex shapes, its
delivery to work area is critical. Wavelength, power, energy, beam diameter, divergence
etc of the laser beam decide the transmission method. Flexible optical fiber can be used
to transmit near infra-red lasers like Nd: YAG (1.06 micron) and COIL (1.13 micron), but
the same cannot be used to transmit CO2 laser (10.6 micron), where mirrors and prisms
have to be employed. High power lasers can heat the optics thus altering the shape of
the surface quality of the optics adversely affecting the beam quality. It is likely that the
space between the optics may get heated up due to the high intensity of the laser beam,
which reduces the beam quality due to thermal blooming.

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Safety of personnel is of paramount importance as the potential laser hazards include

biological, fire, electrical shock, fumes, debris etc. Safety aspect of laser beams will be
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discussed in detail in another section. It is also to be remembered that the training of the CONTACT US
personnel is costly, time consuming and laborious.

To have an idea of radiance, let us look at the radiance of sun and 1 mw laser. The
radiance of a 1 milli-watt He-Ne laser with an output diameter of 1mm and of divergence
of 1 milli-radian is 160 x 106 Watts/m2 – steradian where as the radiance of the sun with
emission power of 1026 Watts is only about 106 Watts/m2 steradian.

Material processing applications require very high laser intensity at the working region. As
can be seen, laser beam can be focused to a very small spot size, thus generating the
highest intensity possible. We know that diffraction limits the minimum spot size that can
be achieved. When a laser beam with divergence Θ is focused with a lens of focal length
f, then the estimated focal spot focus radius r is,

r=f.Θ

Since the divergence of the beam is determined by the diffraction at the aperture of the
laser, the divergence angle Θ can be approximated to,

Θ = λ/d

where λ is the wavelength of the laser and d is the diameter of the limiting aperture.

Then,
r = f. λ/d = λf/d

If we use a lens of F number one to focus the laser beam, then r = λ, which means that a
laser beam can at best be focused to a spot size equal to the order of its wavelength, due
to diffraction.

The above discussion is truly applicable to beams with Gaussian profile only, where the
laser beam oscillates in the lowest mode. The lowest Gaussian mode is TEM00 and the
divergence is lowest. But practical laser systems operate with much higher divergence
and F-numbers. The minimum spot size that can be achieved is about 6 microns for
Nd:YAG (λ = 1.06micron) and 60 microns for CO2 (λ = 10.6 micron) lasers. Another
important parameter is depth of focus and the beam waist. When a laser beam is focused
with a lens, the minimum size of the beam at the focal plane is referred to as beam waist.
The intensity of the beam does not reduce much on either side of the beam waist as it
propagates. The depth of focus is the distance over which the intensity on either side of
the beam falls to 50% of its peak value.

The diameter of the focal spot (focal diameter) and the depth of focus are very much
related to the focal length of the lens system. A short focal length lens can produce a
smaller focal diameter compared to a longer focal length lens. But depth of focus in the
shorter focal length lens will be shorter than the one that can be obtained with the longer
focal length lens. Therefore, one has to be very judicious in designing the focal length of
the focusing system, which will be decided by the application, say as in welding
operations. Further, one also has to remember that a short focal length lens will have
large spherical aberration. To reduce this defect one has to employ aspherical or multi-
element lens system.

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One dimensional heat flow model is the most convenient model to explain most of the
experimental results. As per this model, if the heat flows in one direction and there is
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no convection or heat generation, it is assumed that there is a constant extended
surface heat input and constant thermal properties, with no radiant heat loss or
melting then

At z = 0, the surface power density is

where T = temperature, z = depth, t is time , k is thermal conductivity, α is thermal

diffusivity, F0 is the absorbed power density, rf is the reflectivity of the surface. The
surface temperature T0t can thus be written as:

For a continuous gaussian source, the temperature of a surface central point under
stationary condition is given by

Maximum possible temperature is

where D is the diameter of the laser spot.

The amount of power effective on any other point on the surface within the beam
depends on the power distribution. For example, for a Gaussian mode structure,
TEM00, the power at any point is given as

where

and rb is the beam radius at the work piece.

Some of the important features related to some important industrial applications of Lasers
are given below:

Drilling
Drilling operation requires focusing of the laser beam at the point of interest. When laser
is focused on the work piece, say metals, the surface gets heated up first and then
conduction heats the subsurface. Drilling of metals by laser is based on surface heating.
Laser material interaction depends on material properties like reflectivity, absorption,
thermal conductivity and diffusivity, specific heat, melting and vaporization, latent heat of

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fusion, heat capacity etc.

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Metals are basically very good reflectors. Since reflectivity varies with wavelength, this
aspect has to be kept in mind while selecting a laser. The reflectivity of polished silver is
about 15% at 300 nm and it increases steeply to about 95% in the visible region, reaching
98% for far infrared region. In the case of copper, reflectivity is 30% at 200 to 400 nm and
it increases to 90% at 700 nm, reaching to 98% at 3 mm wavelength. Reflectivity of
aluminum is 80% at 400 nm, reducing to 75% at 1μm and then increasing to 90% at 2.5
μm, remaining same for longer wavelengths. In case of carbon steel, reflectivity increases
from 40% at 400 nm to 85% at 4μm. CO2 lasers and free running as well as Q-switched
Nd:YAG / Nd:Glass lasers are normally employed for drilling of holes in various materials
with thickness varying from millimeter to few centimeters. From the above discussion
regarding reflectivity aspects, it can be seen that Nd:YAG (1064 nm) is better suited for
drilling operation than CO2 laser (10.6 μm). The average power levels of the lasers
employed vary from tens of watts to few KWs. The power levels and the pulse duration of
lasers are decided by the nature and the thickness of the work piece. Absorption of laser
energy by the target material is another important aspect. Oxidized surfaces absorb laser
energy much better than unoxidised surfaces since the reflectivity of the former is much
less than the latter.

As the penetration depth of the laser increases, the absorbed energy heats up the work
piece and at high irradiance level of 106 W/cm2 onwards, the laser focal spot starts
melting. The melted material is removed by flushing. As the vaporized material is
removed, a new surface is formed for further drilling.

Laser intensity plays a very important part in drilling. The ratio of vapor and liquid material
removal is proportional to laser intensity. Consider nickel as example. It takes 1.84
millisecond to reach vaporization for laser intensity of 105 W/cm2, where as it is only 1.84
nano second when the laser power is increased to 107 W/cm2. Another aspect is the
dependence of process velocity on laser intensity, especially when drilling holes with
single pulse. The process velocity is defined as the constant velocity with which the vapor
pressure drives the interface melt into the material. It is found that above certain
threshold intensity, the processing velocity increases from zero to a higher value, which is
material specific and then remains constant as the laser intensity increases. Let us take
two materials, aluminum and copper as examples to illustrate the above statement. For
aluminum, the processing velocity increases from zero to 25 m/s, as the laser intensity is
increased from 300 watts/cm2 to 500W/cm2 and it remains same as the laser intensity
increase to 2Kw/cm2. For copper, processing velocity increases from zero to 20 m/sec
when the laser intensity is raised from 700 W/cm2 to 1 kW/cm2 and then remaining
almost constant for higher laser intensities.

Vaporization and material removal depend on the materials. While drilling, these two
reach saturation level due to absorption and refraction of laser by the expanding plasma,
which shields the work piece from further drilling. Drilling efficiency depends on power
density, pulse duration and number of pulses. Higher machining rate can be achieved,
when drilling with high repetition rate pulses and lower laser energies rather than vice
versa. Laser with longer pulses with lower energies produce deeper holes compared to
shorter pulses with higher energies and the former require less number of pulses as well.
Nd:YAG laser in the free running mode as well as in the Q-switched mode with power
levels varying from hundreds of watts to few kilowatts and pulse width varying from 0.1
millisecond to 3milliseconds are normally employed for drilling holes with diameter in the

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millimeter range through metals up to several centimeters thick. CO2 lasers in the CW
mode as well as in the pulsed mode with 0.5-millisecond pulse length are used for drilling
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holes in polymers and ceramics. Nd:YAG lasers are used for drilling hundreds holes, at a
rate of 60 holes per second with diameters of 50 micrometers to 100 micrometers in the
production of filters for fuel injection purposes. Radio frequency excited sealed CO2
lasers as well as TEA CO2 lasers producing high pulse repetition rate of tens of
thousands with peak power of few hundred to 1000 watts and average power of few
hundreds of watts, with pulse duration ranging from tens of microseconds to milli-second
duration are also used for drilling. Basically, Nd:YAG lasers are better suited for drilling
operations compared to CO2 lasers as wavelength of former (1.06 μm) is ten times
shorter than the latter (10.6 μm) and consequently the focal spot size is ten times shorter
for the same focusing system. Further, absorption of energy at 1.06 μm is much more
than at 10.6 μm in metals.

Laser Cutting
Laser cutting is today the most common industrial application of lasers. In Japan,
around 80 % of the industrial lasers are used for this application only. The advantages
of using lasers are that these can cut faster and with a higher quality as compared to
other competing processes like abrasive fluid jet, sawing, oxy flame, wire EDM,
ultrasonic, plasma and NC milling.

The cut can have a very narrow kerf width (width of the cut opening) resulting in
substantial saving of material.

The cutting edges can be square and not rounded as with most hot jet processes or
other thermal cutting techniques.

The cut edges can be smooth and clean thus do not need any further treatment.

There is no edge burr as with mechanical cutting techniques

There is very narrow Heat Affected Zone as a result of resolidification. This results in
minimum distortions.

Cut depth is limited and depends on laser power. 10 – 20 mm is the current range for
high quality cuts.

Fastest cutting process.

Tool wear is zero since the process is non-contact one.

The noise level is low.

The process can be made easily automatic.

Nearly all materials can be cut. They can be brittle, electric conductors or non-
conductors, hard or soft. Only high reflective materials such as aluminum or copper
can pose a problem but proper beam control these can also be cut.

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Typical arrangement for Laser Cutting

The major components of the laser cutting process include laser with some shutter
control, beam guidance, focusing optics, CNC drive for precisely moving the workpiece.
When not in use, the laser beam is directed towards beam dump, which may be a water
calorimeter. Gas jet not only assists the cutting process but also works as an air knife that
blows sideways across the exit from the optic train thus deflecting any smoke and
splatter.

Laser cutting process is a function of a multiple parameters like laser beam properties,
work piece transport properties, gas properties and material properties. Beam parameters
include spot size and mode, power, pulsed or CW, polarization and wavelength. Transport
properties speed of the stage carrying work piece and focal position of the laser. Gas
properties comprise of jet velocity, nozzle position, nozzle shape and alignment and gas
composition. Material properties of relevance are mainly optical and thermal.

There are various processes, which can be utilized for cutting depending on the power
available and the material. These include:

Scribing and Thermal Stress Cracking: These processes require the minimum power.
Scribing is a process for making a groove or line of holes in order to make the make the
structure weak so that it can be mechanically broken. Particularly silicon chips and
alumina substrates use this technique. Low energy, high density pulses are used to
remove the material mainly as vapour. In case of brittle material, thermal stress cracking
is usually preferred. These materials are neatly severed, by guiding a crack with a fine
spot heated by a laser. The laser heats a small volume of surface causing it to expand
and hence to cause tensile stresses all around it. If there is a crack in this region, it will
act as a stress enhancer and the cracking continues in the direction of hot spot. The
speeds of the order of meter / sec can be achieved with this. Material like glass, quartz,
alumina, sapphire can be cut with powers as low as 10 W with speed upto half a meter
per second.

Burning Stabilized Laser Gas cutting: In this mode, laser is used more of a matchstick
to ignite the metal in an oxygen stream. Very thick sections can be cut with relatively less
power. The process is essentially oxygen cutting with wide kerf widths of the order of 3 –
4 mm, however the quality of edge and squareness is far better as compared to
oxy/plasma cutting. Typical rates for cutting 80 mm thick mild steel are 0.2 mm/min with
1.2 kW and 1 mm/sec with 2 kW of laser power.

Fusion Cutting: The process is also called Melt and Blow. Once a penetration hole is
made or cut is started from the edge, then it is possible with sufficiently strong gas jet to
blow the molten material out of the cut kerf thus avoiding the temperature increase of

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workpiece. The melt is removed before any significant conduction occurs. In this manner
one requires almost one tenth of the power otherwise required for vaporization. The laser
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part is reflected off the unmelted surface. At slow speeds the melt starts at the leading
edge of the beam and much of the beam passes clean through the kerf without touching
the material particularly when the workpiece is thin. The absorption takes place on the
steeply sloped cut via Fresenel absorption – that is direct interaction of the beam with the
material and secondly by plasma absorption. The plasma build up is not very significant
as it is blown away by the gas. At high speeds, the beam is coupled to the workpiece
more efficiently by less being lost in the kerf. The beam tends to ride ahead onto the
unmelted surface. When this happens, the power density increases since the surface is
not sloped and so the melt proceeds faster and is swept down into the kerf.

If the gas used in cutting is capable of reacting exothermally with the workpiece then
another heat source is added to the process thus overall reducing the laser energies.
Oxygen or oxygen containing mixtures is usually used for this application.

Typically mild steel, stainless steel and titanium can be cut with speed upto 80 mm/sec
using oxygen jet with energies of 5.7J/mm2, 5J/mm2 and 3J/mm2 respectively. Further the
energy required for cutting with nitrogen or argon is higher as compared to that required
for oxygen. Typically mild steel requires energy of 10J/mm2 with nitrogen as compared to
5.7J/mm2 with oxygen. Similarly stainless cutting requires energies of the order of
13J/mm2, 8J/mm2 and 5J/mm2 with argon, nitrogen and oxygen respectively.

Vaporization cutting: In this cutting mode, the process relies on vaporization. The laser
beam first heats up the surface to boiling point and thus generates the keyhole. The
keyhole causes a sudden increase in the absorptivity due to multiple reflections and the
hole deepens quickly. As a result, the vapors are generated which escape blowing the
material out of hole thereby stabilizing the walls temperature of the hole. This is a
common method of cutting the materials, which do not melt like wood, carbon, and
plastics mainly employing pulsed lasers. When the metals are cut using this technique,
the heat-affected zone is minimum in this case usually of the order of few microns.
Typically, if we use a laser of 2 kW focused to a 0.2mm beam, the power density is 6.3 x
1010 W/m2. With this power density, the vaporization temperature of most of the metals
like tungsten, titanium, steel etc can be achieved within a microsecond and the speeds of
cutting can be high as one meter per second.

Cold Cutting: This is a relatively new technique. Mainly lasers in the ultraviolet range like
Excimer, have been used for this mode of application. For example the energy of the
ultraviolet photon is 4.9eV, which is similar to the bond energy for many organic materials.
Thus if a bond is radiated with such a photon, the bond is broken. When this radiation is
impinged onto plastic with sufficient flux of photons such that at least there is one photon
for each bond, then the material just disappears without heating leaving a hole without
leaving any debris. The process is being widely used for laser ablation of materials for
thin film applications. There are potential medical applications also including microsurgery
and conventional ablation of tumor cells.

There are numerous applications of laser cutting. These include:

Profile cutting in metals

Cutting of quartz tubes

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Kevlar cutting

Cutting
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Cutting radioactive materials

Cutting of materials in prototype car production and shipbuilding

Hole drilling in electronic industry

Laser machining

Laser Welding
The intensity of focused laser beam is comparable to electron beam and is one of the
highest power densities available in industry today, At energy densities in the range of
1010 – 1012W/m2, almost all materials are likely to evaporate provided the energy is
completely absorbed. In laser welding, a hole is usually formed by evaporation, which
traverses through the material with molten walls sealing up behind it. This is known as
keyhole weld, which is characterized by its parallel-sided fusion zone with a narrow width.
The concept of welding efficiency is known as joining efficiency and is defined as mm2
joined per kJ of energy supplied. In terms of power and thickness and traverse speed it is
equal to [Vt/P], where V, t and P are traverse speed in mm/sec, thickness welded in mm
and laser power in kW respectively. The higher the value of joining efficiency, lower is the
laser power used and thus lower are the distortions and heat affected zone. High
frequency Resistance welding is the best in this respect having joining efficiency of the
order of 65 – 100 mm2/kJ as compared to 15-30 mm2/kJ achievable in Laser and electron
beam welding. Nevertheless it is far more efficient than oxy acetylene flame and tungsten
inert gas welding. As Lasers offer high quality, high speed welding, the process is
capturing fast and is likely to take 25 – 30% of world market share for neat and reliable
welding.

The advantages of use of lasers in welding can be summarized as follows:

High energy density "keyhole" type weld leading to less distortion

High processing speed

Rapid start

Weld at ambient pressure unlike electron beam welding

No X-ray generated unlike electron welding

Narrow weld

Little heat affected zone

No contamination

Easy to automate

Accurate and reliable welding

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General setup for Laser welding

The welding relies mainly on a tightly focused laser beam and the general set up is
shown in the adjoining figure. Shrouding is a feature that is almost used in all the welding
techniques. It protects the optics as well from spatter. There are two modes of welding.
Conduction limited welding occurs when the laser power density is insufficient to cause
boiling particularly in the case of broad beams required for welding variable gaps. In this
case, it generates the keyhole at a given traverse speed. The weld pool in this case has a
strong stirring forces resulting from the variation in surface tension with temperature. The
other mode is keyhole welding in which there is sufficient laser energy to cause
evaporation and hence the hole is in the melt pool. The pressure from the vapour being
generated stabilizes this hole. The keyhole behaves as an optical black body in that the
radiations enter the hole and are subjected to multiple reflections and are unable to
escape. There are two principle areas of interest in the mechanism of keyhole welding.
The first is the flow structure since this directly affects the wave formation on the weld
pool and hence the final frozen weld bead geometry, which is a measure of weld quality.
The second is the mechanism for absorption within the keyhole, which may affect both
the flow and the entrapped porosity and hence decides about the quality of the weld.

Laser welding process is a function of a multiple parameters like laser beam properties,
work piece transport properties, shroud gas properties and material properties. Beam
parameters include spot size and mode, power, pulsed or CW, polarization and
wavelength. Transport properties speed of the stage carrying work piece, joint
geometries, gap tolerance and focal position of the laser. Shroud Gas properties
comprise of composition, shroud design, pressure and velocity. Material properties of
relevance are mainly composition, surface condition, optical and thermal.

Good quality weld can be obtained with the right choice of power and weld speed. The
welding speed for a given thickness increases with the increase in laser power. Typically
for welding a 2 mm titanium alloy, the weld speed can be increased from 5 mm/sec to
more than 50 mm/sec if the laser power is increased from a kilowatt to two kilowatts.

Penetration is inversely proportional to the weld speed for a given lode, focal spot size
and laser power. Typically, for welding stainless steel (304), the penetration depth
increases from 3mm to more than 20 mm for a 5 kW laser power when welding speed is
reduced from 150 mm/sec to about 10 mm/sec.

For pulsed lasers such as Nd:YAG, pulse width is an important consideration. For
example, pulse width less than a millisecond with energies upto 10 J are best suited for
cutting and drilling, whereas larger pulse width in the range of 2 – 5 milliseconds with
almost similar energies are suitable for welding. Higher energies (> 10 J) and larger pulse
widths (> 4 milisecond) are being employed for deep welding.

In welding of butt joints, the gap must be small enough that the beam cannot pass

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straight through the joint. In other words, the gap should be smaller than half the beam
diameter. In case where is a larger gap, either the beam is defocused a bit or a filler
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material like wire or powder is added in the joint. The gap 'g' that can be tolerated in butt
joints is given by

where β is the coefficient of thermal expansion, ΔT is the temperature change usually the
melting point , w is the weld width and A is a constant.

However, the gap between the plates 'g' which can be tolerated in case of lap welding is
given by

where tp is the sheet thickness and B is a constant.

The shroud gas can affect the formation of plasma, which may block or distort the beam
and thus may affect the absorption of the laser energy. The formation of the plasma is a
result of reaction of the hot metal vapors from the keyhole with the shroud gas. The
plasma blocking effect is usually less for those gases having a high value of ionization
potential. This is the reason why helium is preferred over other gases. However, if the
shroud gas is reactive with the weld material, it may form a thin layer such as oxide that
results in enhancing the optical coupling.

In order to have an idea about the power requirements for welding, one can assume
Laser welding based on keyhole model: model using the moving line source that
assumes that the energy is absorbed uniformly along a line in the depth direction.
Analytical equations can be used to estimate power or speed of the job

and

where v is the welding speed, w is the weld width, α is the thermal diffusivity, Q is input
power per unit time and is given as Q = P(1-rf), g is the job thickness to be welded, k is
thermal conductivity and T is the temperature of the plate.

For example, if we wish to weld a 10mm thick stainless steel at a speed of 10mm/s.
assuming a usual weld width of 1.5 mm laser power required can be estimated using
above relations.

For 304 stainless steel the value of α, k and melting point Tm are 0.49 x 10-5 m2/s, 100
W/m/K, and 1527 oC respectively. The values of Y and X are

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If one assumes transfer efficiency of 90%, total power required is 11.8 kW

Some of the important applications of laser welding in industrial applications

include:

Welding of transmission systems and other subsystems for car industry.

Hermetically sealing of electronic capsules

Welding of thick pipes

Repair of nuclear boiler tubes

Welding of sheet metal products such as washing machines and heat exchangers

It is now increasingly being used for 3D welding of aircraft and car components
because of well-controlled manipulation.

Welding of polymers and plastics for which typically 20 – 40 W diode lasers operating
at 800 – 900 nm are being used.

Surface Treatment
Surface treatment employs lasers of varying energies. For example low power density
processes of transformation rely on surface heating without melting and include
hardening, bending, laser chemical vapor deposition. Moderately higher power densities,
which rely on melting, include surface homogenization, laser glazing, surface alloying and
cladding. Much higher power densities rely not on melting but also on evaporation and
these processes include instant ablation, shock hardening.

Laser Heat Treatment: The main goal of laser heat treatment is selective hardening for
wear reduction. However it is also being used to change metallurgical and mechanical
properties. Practical uses of laser heat treatment include hardness increase, strength
increase, friction reduction, wear reduction, increase in fatigue life, surface carbide
creation and for changing metallurgical and mechanical properties. Laser heat treatment
is usually carried out on titanium, some aluminum alloys, steels with sufficient carbon
contents and cast iron with pearlite structure. An absorbing coating is usually applied to
the metal surface to avoid laser power loss. As the laser beam impinges on the metal
surface, the temperature starts rising and the thermal energy is conducted into the metal
component. The laser energy should be sufficient to result in temperature rise
corresponding to transformation temperatures, which are required for a particular
process. However, it should not lead to melting. Typical laser power densities required for
these applications are in the range of 103 – 104 W/mm2 and the workpiece speed lies in
between 5 – 50 mm/sec. The affected depth in laser heat treatment effects depend on the
laser power P and the heating time i.e. D/V, where D is the laser spot diameter and V is
the traverse speed. Mathematically, the depth of penetration 'd' can be given as

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where A and B are constants.

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Laser Surface Melting: The main characteristics of laser surface melting process are:

Rapid solidification rates leading to almost homogeneous structures

Very little thermal penetration, resulting in little distortion and even thermally sensitive
materials can be processed

Good surface finish

Process flexibility, because of automation and software control

Powers of the order of 103 – 106 W/cm2 are usually employed for these processes. The
surface to be melted is shrouded by an inert gas. There are mainly three metallurgical
areas of interest: cast irons, tool steels and certain deep eutectics that can form metallic
glasses at high quench rates. All these are essentially non-homogeneous materials,
which can be homogenized by laser surface melting. Surface alloying with a laser is
similar to laser surface melting except that another material is injected into the melt pool.
The alloyed region shows a fine microstructure with nearly homogeneous mixing
throughout the melt region. Further most materials can be alloyed into most of the
substrates. The high quench rates ensure that the segregation is minimal. The thickness
of the treated zone can vary from few microns to a couple of millimeters. Very thin and
fast quenched alloy regions can be fabricated using Q-switched Nd: YAG lasers. The
metal to be alloyed can be placed on the base material by electroplating or vacuum
evaporation or powder coating or ion implantation or diffusion such as boron or reactive
gas shroud. Surface alloying of copper, silicon or carbon in mild steel can result in cheap
superficially exotic materials. Similarly laser surface hardening of aluminum by alloying
with silicon, carbon, nitrogen and nickel has shown excellent properties in car and aircraft
industries.

Laser cladding is slightly different than laser alloying. In cladding, the purpose is to
overlay one metal over another metal to form a sound interfacial bond or weld but without
mixing with one another. Claddings are usually thick greater than 200 micron. For laser
cladding one can have powder pre-placed on top of the other metal, or can have layers
grown by laser physical vapor deposition of layers grown by laser chemical vapor
deposition. Cladding with pre-placed powder is one of the simplest method in which area
is covered with powder with some binder and the workpiece is shrouded with inert gas.
The powder is scanned with a defocused laser beam resulting the powder to melt and
weld with the underlying substrate. Usually laser power of the range of 2 kW can be used
to have a clad thickness of few millimeters.

Other Industrial Applications of Lasers

Enhanced electroplating

Surface texturing

Laser ablation

Laser chemical vapor deposition

Laser physical vapor deposition

Non-contact bending

Magnetic domain control

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Laser cleaning and paint stripping

Surface
HOME roughening
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Micro-machining

Laser marking

Shock hardening

Stereolithography

Laser direct casting

Process control using lasers

References
Industrial applications of Lasers by John F. Reddy: Academic Press, 1997.

http://lasermatter.umd.edu/

https://www.princeton.edu/~spikelab/papers/book02.pdf

http://proceedings.spiedigitallibrary.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=926269

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laser_applications

http://www.industrial-lasers.com/index.html

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/optmod/lasapp.html

https://www.coherent.com/applications/index.cfm?
fuseaction=Forms.page&PageID=250

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