Adaptively Controlled Hybrid Welding Using a High Brightness Laser

Hybrid laser-MAG welding with real-time adaptive control has been demonstrated.Hybrid welding conditions have been developed to produce ISO 13919-1 class B (stringent) quality butt welds between 8mm thickness steel plates,using a 5kW 6mm.mrad Yb fibre laser combined with conventional arc welding equipment.A laser vision seam tracking system has enabled a 7-axis robot,manipulating the hybrid welding head,to track butt joints in real time during welding.The laser vision system has also provided information on the variations in joint fit-up,in particular the width of any gaps,or height of any mismatches present.This information has then been used to automatically adjust the robot position or speed,or arc welding parameters,depending on the fit-up detected.In this way,the tolerance of the hybrid process has been augmented,producing stringent quality welds over a wider range of joint fit-up cases than when using fixed conditions alone.