Laser welding monitor

Abstract

A laser weld monitoring system capable of assessing a weld quality of welding using a pulsed laser is provided. The system includes at least one sensor capable of capturing a weld characteristic of welding using said pulsed laser. The weld characteristic has multiple attributes. The system also includes data acquisition and processing equipment adapted for storing and analyzing the weld characteristic. A user first performs multiple welds to capture at least one weld characteristic for each weld. The user then determines the weld quality of each weld, and runs at least one of a library of algorithms associated with the attributes on said at least one weld characteristic for each weld to generate a single value output for the associated attribute. The user selects an attribute indicative of the weld quality by correlating the single value outputs of said at least one algorithm with the weld qualities of the welds.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention relates to laser welding, in particular to a method and device for monitoring welding quality during pulsed laser welding. The invention can be used for both welding process design and welding process control. Background technique [0002] Lasers are often used in welding as a non-contact source of energy requiring little heat input. Specifically, a low-power pulsed Nd:YAG laser with high peak power and small spot size can heat the material above its melting point without significantly increasing the temperature near the weld pool. Advanced features, such as pulse shaping and laser power feedback, further improve solid-state lasers by enhancing control of laser output. However, even with these advanced properties, laser-material interactions cannot be directly predicted in advance; thus, it is difficult to design a reliable and easy-to-use laser welding monitoring system. [0003] Traditional surveillance technologies use sensors such ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

However, it is often difficult to analyze the monitored weld characteristics to distinguish good from bad welds due to the difficulty of predicting laser-material interactions

In addition, complex pattern matching and / or advanced mathematical techniques are often used to analyze the collected distributions, further complicating the analysis and application process

Due to the complexity of traditional monitoring technology and the difficulty of combining it with analysis, users usually do not understand the monitoring process and completely rely on system developers to manufacture systems that meet their process design and / or process control needs

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