Fiber laser welding technique

joins challenging metals

03/08/2017

Method works with single-mode and multimode fiber lasers

BRYCE SAMSON, TONY HOULT, and MUSTAFA COSKUN
The move towards adopting lighter and stronger materials in everyday products, from
automobiles to consumer electronics, has led to a number of significant challenges in
welding these structures, especially in high-volume production environments. Examples
in the transportation industry include electric vehicle infrastructure, where battery
manufacturing often requires joining of dissimilar highly reflective materials such as
aluminum and copper.
Further adoption of high-strength steels, together with aluminum and magnesium
composites for weight reduction in automobiles, is another related example. In
consumer electronics, the requirements for lightweight structures with highly tailored
thermal and electrical properties are constantly driving the need for more complex
designs, often using thin foils and requiring joining of dissimilar metals, again with
aluminum and copper being the heavily featured materials. The medical device industry
is also driving the need for joining small metal parts, often with dissimilar materials.
Growth of laser welding has been ongoing for over a decade, with the automotive
industry—an early adopter of the technology—being the first to see the benefits of an
automated joining process combined with the intrinsic advantages of fiber laser
technology. However, the challenges of laser welding many of the materials described
previously have remained significant and could explain the slow rate of the adoption of
laser welding in some applications.
Recently, the introduction of a new, cost-effective, easy-to-integrate technology, based
on a beam wobbling technique, is helping to overcome some of these difficulties in
welding materials such as copper and aluminum with high-brightness fiber lasers at
1μm. This technique is helping to overcome porosity and hot cracking issues with laser
welding of some materials, while helping to make part fit-up 3X more forgiving in some
of the examples discussed in this article. By enabling independent control of penetration
depth, spot velocity, weld speed, and seam width, the technique has applications in
welding small, temperature-sensitive assemblies (for medical parts)—poorly fitted parts
that can be difficult to laser-weld and cosmetically attractive to weld without the need
for post-processing.
Wobble head technology
FIGURE 1 demonstrates the concept of the 2D dynamic beam motion or wobble head
technology, where the four basic programmable shapes available from an industry-
standard welding head, such as the D30 from IPG Photonics, are shown. Independent
control of the amplitude and frequency of the oscillation is achieved through the galvo-
mirror controller, allowing more flexibility in stabilizing the keyhole melt during the
welding process, with typical frequencies up to 300Hz used in most applications. Power
handling of commercial wobble welding heads is now available up 12kW.
 FIGURE 1. Examples of wobble shapes from commercially available welding
wobble heads, with independent adjustable amplitude and frequency control up
to 300Hz.
Stability of the keyhole melt is a critical factor when laser welding difficult high-
reflectivity materials such as copper and aluminum. This is partly because of the
tendency to spatter and, in the case of some aluminum alloys, exhibit a high level of
porosity because of the viscosity and surface tension of the melt, making these materials
a challenge to weld using more traditional laser welding techniques. Recent studies [1-
4] have shown the reduction or elimination of these problems with the beam wobble
technique, including a recent systematic study both with and without filler wire on
automotive aluminum alloys [2].
Overall, the wobble technique allows for better temperature management of the part
since the beam passes near any given point of the weld multiple times. The ramp in
temperature and cooling rates are slower than in traditional laser welding, which helps
in eliminating defects and managing spatter. In addition, this welding technique is
compatible with typical welding accessories such as assist gas ports and coaxial nozzles,
which enable plume suppression and can help control spatter—techniques that are not
readily compatible with the scan heads used in remote welding.
In addition to stabilizing the keyhole melt and reducing porosity in the subsequent weld,
the beam wobble technique has proved valuable for alleviating the part fit requirements
for laser welding, as summarized in the TABLE. Using one of the programmable
shapes (infinity in this case) and optimizing the amplitude and frequency of the
oscillation, an increase in the acceptable seam gap of 3X that achieved in conventional
laser welding is seen.
TABLE. A summary of wobble head welding on the process window for seam gap and offset,
where a factor of 2–3 increase in both process parameters can be achieved compared with
conventional laser welding.
A similar improvement in the process window is also observed for the seam offset when
utilizing the beam wobble technique, allowing a 2–3X increase in offset when compared
with conventional laser welding.
Example implementations
An example of the weld quality and consistency achieved with the wobble head is
shown in FIGURE 2 for welding of 6061-T6 aluminum, a quality of finish that would
not be possible with conventional laser welding. It can eliminate post-processing of the
weld to achieve a cosmetic finish of the final part.
 FIGURE 2. Examples of 6061-T6 aluminum welds using the
beam-wobble technique.
Upon further inspection, the reduction of the porosity associated with the beam
wobbling technique is evident (FIGURE 3), where the cross-section is compared with
conventional laser welding on 6061 aluminum, showing the absence of pores when
using the wobble-head welding process. Similar improvements in porosity have been
reported [2, 4] using the wobbling technique and attributed to the mixing of the molten
bath during the keyhole rotation, which occurs with the beam wobble process.

FIGURE 4. Welding of dissimilar metals such as stainless steel and copper (a) is
enabled by the wobble-head technique to control the intermetallic region between the
two materials (b).
Laser welding of dissimilar metals is another difficult process area, where the wobble
head technology has shown significant potential, such as welding stainless steel and
copper (FIGURE 4a). Melting and solidification of the intermetallic layer can be
controlled with the wobble-head technique to greatly improve weld quality between the
two dissimilar metals, as shown in the EDS-image of FIGURE 4b. In this weld we used
the circular wobble pattern shown in the TABLE.
Wobble-head welding of copper
Some of the challenges associated with welding copper using lasers operating at 1μm
are well known and covered previously [1]. In that study, we utilized a single-mode
fiber laser and a small spot size to increase the fluence at the workpiece and help
stabilize the keyhole melt. This has been studied in some detail in micro-welding of thin
foils [5], but is a feature applicable to wobble-head welding, where we are utilizing a
small spot and more-efficient keyhole in the process. In our experience, the linear
speeds and total heat input (power from the laser) is often comparable to the traditional
laser welding. Typically, at lower speeds, an unstable coupling of the laser and clear
spatter ejection from the keyhole melt a result of the high reflectivity of copper and low
viscosity and surface tension of the material. The trend at higher speeds is a stable weld
enabled by the high fluence and small spot size from a single-mode fiber laser.
However, this comes at an expense of a reduced penetration depth of the final weld.
The wobble-head technology is a useful tool to overcome these problems (FIGURES 5
and 6). By employing the wobble-head amplitude function, the top bead width can be
systematically increased while the wobble frequency function is used to stabilize the
keyhole. Results were obtained utilizing a similar-power single-mode fiber laser and the
linear weld speed and laser power are maintained throughout the range of parameters.
 FIGURE 5. Using a single-mode fiber laser with independent control of the
wobble-head amplitude and frequency control functions enables copper
welds.
The wobble-head technology is fully compatible with multimode fiber lasers, and in our
tests [1] copper welds using a high-power (5kW) fiber laser operating together with the
wobble head were demonstrated . In the case of the higher power levels, greater
penetration depth is achieved (up to 4mm, in this case) and, as in the previous study, the
additional process flexibility associated with the wobble-head technology is used to
control the keyhole and stabilize the melt during the process.

FIGURE 6. Weld cross-sections of copper using the wobble-head method

and a single-mode fiber laser.
Aluminum-to-copper overlap welding for the battery industry is the final application
reviewed in this article. In this case, the penetration depth is a critical parameter to
minimize the intermetallic formation (ideally less than 10μm), which can be controlled
by the speed of the process in traditional laser welding. However, in the case of utilizing
the wobble-head technique, we have the additional control weld width and penetration
through the amplitude and frequency functions on the wobble head.
In our study, , we see the effect of an increase in wobble amplitude (from 0.2 to
1.2mm). This is achieved by increasing the weld width, minimizing the penetration
depth, and subsequently improving the mechanical properties of the weld between the
aluminum and copper parts.
Conclusion
The difficulties associated with laser welding of materials such as aluminum and copper
using 1μm lasers can largely be overcome by using high-brightness fiber lasers together
with the latest 2D wobble-head technology for additional beam control of the keyhole
melt during the welding process. In turn, this is shown to help eliminate porosity and
sputtering associated with laser welding of these materials using traditional techniques.
The additional degrees of freedom achieved through independent amplitude and
frequency of the wobble-head oscillation, when combined with the high brightness and
power available from the fiber laser, offer the level of control needed to achieve good-
quality laser welding in difficult materials.
Examples presented here are laser welding of difficult materials such as aluminum and
copper as well as welding of dissimilar materials, including control of the intermetallic
mixing region with the wobble-head technology. In addition, the technology offers
significant advantages in part fit through relaxed tolerance on seam gap and offset in
studies comparing the wobble head with traditional laser welding processes. Suitability
of the technique with both single-mode and multimode high-power fiber lasers is also
shown in the study. Finally, the technology is compatible with standard welding
accessories such as assist gas delivery ports and coaxial nozzles.
REFERENCES
[1] T. Hoult et al., "Welding solutions for challenging metals with ytterbium fiber
lasers," ICALEO 2016 presentation, San Diego, CA (Oct. 2016).
[2] G. Barbieri et al., Mater. Sci. Forum, 879, 1057–1062 (2017).
[3] O. Berend et al., "High frequency beam oscillation to increase the process stability
during laser welding with high melt pool dynamics," Proc. ICALEO, 1041, 1032 (2005).
[4] G. Barbieri et al., Procedia Eng., 109, 427–434 (2015).
[5] I. Miyamoto et al., "Precision microwelding of thin metal foil with single-mode fiber
laser," Proc. SPIE, 5063, 297–302 (2003).

BRYCE SAMSON (bsamson@ipgphotonics.com), TONY HOULT, and MUSTAFA

COSKUN are all with IPG Photonics, Oxford, MA; www.ipgphotonics.com.