SIL’s laser welding for industrial heavy applications

By OEM Update Editorial September 11, 2018 4:57 pm IST

Nowadays, laser technology is widely used for welding of any materials. The fiber laser technology with stable high power lasers from 4KW to 10KW has opened the gates for applications in thick metal welding of stainless steel (SS) and mild steel (MS). Even aluminium welding having applications in battery can be done successfully using laser technology. In fact, short wavelength laser welding systems enable us to weld materials with more thickness than the conventional CO2 laser welding.

SIL has successfully developed applications of seam welding with no filler used for stainless steel with no porosity in weld material with 4KW fiber laser. Cut-weld-cut or weld-cut-weld system can be deigned as per application requirements. SIL welding machine can weld 10 to 12mm thick metals with 10KW fiber lasers without filler material. However, it is observed that autogenously weld require no or minimal gap between the two plates. If gap is uneven or more, the energy passes through the gap without heating the material. With this limitation, comes a welding
GTAW process or GMAW process with laser assisted welding.

SIL has developed systems that can weld thick materials, alloys and mild steel of 10 to 15mm of thickness. Introducing the filler material into the weld area and laser acting as a support to the weld pool make the welding process faster and smoother with minimal adjacent heated area. So, the applications that would require ten passes on weld tube,
can be done with maximum of one pass or two pass welding.

Hybrid welding technology can be adapted to the areas of ship building, tank and pressure vessels, marine structures, pipeline and hydraulic power plant with technical expertise and application lab.