Abstract
Automotive manufacturing requires high productive manufacturing technologies to ensure a high-volume efficient production. Joining metal sheets in an overlap joint configuration of zinc-coated steel is an important task for body-in-white production. This paper describes the influence of different spot sizes regarding process stability in laser beam welding. Therefore, welds were performed in an overlap joint configuration with fully penetrated welds. Relevant material combinations for automotive industry were investigated. A broad-based parameter study and the analysis of interaction between spot- and keyhole diameter state a higher process stability. Welds with a smaller spot diameter lead to a sufficient increase of joint quality by using a zero gap overlap configuration. It is shown that the amount of joint instabilities such as pores, pinholes, spatter and further defects can be minimized by using smaller spot diameters. This can be explained by different keyhole regimes. Moreover, the change of isothermal interaction in the interlayer zone caused by the adjusted spot diameter leads to high-quality joints.
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