When
laser beam
welding one or more work pieces faults may occur, which lead to unacceptable losses in quality. For
quality assurance, both subjective visual inspections as well as automated checks of the seam are the norm. In the automated processes the
work site is conventionally monitored during
welding using point or surface detectors (cameras). This type of process can not detect faults which do not occur until after the actual interaction of
laser beam and work piece, in particular, solidification phenomena. Beyond this, certain irregularities relevant to quality are not recognized, since relevant process signals are overridden by stronger signals of the process illumination with no
information value. It is the task of the present invention to provide a check process, which reliably recognizes seam faults. This task is solved in a process for checking of the seam which is introduced into one or more workpieces by means of
laser beam
welding, wherein characteristic signals are detected from the region of the seam using a sensor and compared with an index value or set value, and wherein only signals are taken into consideration which are detected in a characteristic time interval following the
laser beam welding, which begins, at the earliest, following the solidification of the seam.