CASE STUDY: Trumpf CO2 Laser Welding
Remote CO2 Laser welding system exceeds project requirements

Process: CO2  Remote Laser Welding
Industry: Automotive
Parts: Seating Components
Company: Tier-One Automotive Supplier

Project Results

Remote CO2 Laser welding system meets or exceeds project requirements for welding seat back components that includes tooling change over for multiple assemblies. Remote CO2 Laser system with quick change tooling achieves meets suppliers meets and exceeds customers expectations.

Challenges

Integrating Remote CO2 laser welding system with real time weld monitoring with quick change tools to meet tough customer demands from various automotive company quality expectations.  Laser welding of these components requires a “no gap” condition between the parts to successfully weld.  This requires high quality tooling to consistently remove the gap while still providing dimensional stability.  A high level of flexibility was required to allow the cell to quickly change over and to run various models and assemblies.

Tennessee Rand successfully engineered, fabricated, programmed, and installed this system at a Tier-One Automotive supplier in the US.  Experience in laser welding was vital for this challenging project.  With the Laser beam being delivered from a TRUMPFrumpf Truma Scan 1.5 meters away and all the necessary tooling to hold the individual components in place for welding, Tennessee Rand’s tooling experts provided a tooling design that closed the gaps consistently and repeatedly with the added complexity of introducing a shield gas at every weld interface. These quick change tools not only had to be dimensionally repeatable, but also operator and maintenance friendly.  These tools needed to be changed out quickly by disconnecting air, shielding gas, power and communication, removing the entire tool and replacing it with another tool to allow various assemblies to be manufactured on one cell.

The cell was equipped with a MOTION four station dial indexer, TRUMPF Truma Scan L4000 with 6 kWKwatt CO2 laser power source, and a PRECITEC LMW weld monitor.  The combination of Tennessee Rand experience and CNC based machine shop made for a winning combination integrating the various components for their customer. This combination of equipment resulted in the cell achieving welding speeds of approximately 7 meters per minute with 100% real time weld quality monitoring.