How To Improve The Safety Of Laser Welding？

In industrial manufacturing, production safety has always been a work of great importance to government departments, in addition to general accidental injuries, fire protection is a major focus of production safety. All qualified production and processing sites need to get the acceptance permit of fire protection. In late November, the tragedy of a factory fire in Anyang, Henan Province, which killed 38 people, drew wide attention. Fire is caused by unauthorized welding operations.

Welding is a very common process in industrial manufacturing, argon arc welding, resistance spot welding, soldering iron welding and other welding methods have been widely used, but the cost is relatively low, mainly the use of an electric power conversion heat source to achieve high-temperature welding. But because of this, there are many security risks.

Electric welding melts the metal after welding through the arc, so the temperature of the welding process is as high as 3000 to 6000 degrees, and accompanied by high-temperature welding slag or mars splash, contacting with flammable materials, such as floss, cotton fabric, wood, chemicals, etc. It's easy to cause fire or even deflagellation.

Fire accidents caused by traditional electric welding often occur, and cause casualties and great property losses. Therefore, the welding process requires a good working environment, a formal welding process and trained welding workers. In addition, the welding method can also consider safer technologies, such as laser welding.

Laser welding is an efficient and precise welding method that uses the heat energy converted by high energy beam to radiate to the workpiece, instantly melting and bonding the material to achieve welding. Compared with the traditional welding process, laser welding is also the use of high energy, the beam power density is generally greater than 105 W/cm2, and the instantaneous temperature of the welding area reaches thousands of degrees.

However, the difference is that laser welding is a more advanced and intelligent process, common laser welding equipment includes workbench, fixture, safety protection area or baffle separation, that is, after the welder is fixed on the workbench, the personnel leave, start the equipment to automate the welding, and then take out the sample after the shutdown, the whole process personnel is relatively safe.

As for the hidden danger of welding slag or Mars splash ignition, the use of laser welding is not necessary to worry about. Laser welding often uses protective gas or blowing to quickly blow away the slag and cool it. The spark part of the welding is the reflected light of the laser, which quickly disappears and is not easy to ignite the item.

In traditional welding, welder operators often have to face welding dust and smoke, need to wear protective clothing, gap glasses, skin and even lung occupational disease potential risk. Moreover, manual operation time is too long, easy to be tired, and manual welding accuracy is reduced. Now most of the welders are elder workor, young people are increasingly unwilling to do.  It also leads to traditional welding difficult to find a master, so the technological transformation is imperative.

Laser welding equipment has a high degree of automation, no need for long-term manual operation, less smoke pollution, and can be equipped with dust removal purification to achieve clean welding. Laser welding has requirements for the operator's mechanical knowledge, numerical control, etc., and requires specific specialized technicians, which is suitable for young people to play their professional strengths.

In recent years, the gradual rise of the handheld laser welding machine is sought after by the market, and quickly entered the hardware tools, door and window protection, stainless steel kitchen utensils, bathroom, furniture, household appliances, advertising, crafts and other industries. It has successfully replaced part of the traditional welding market.

The biggest advantage of handheld laser welding is that it gets rid of the shackles of the previous laser equipment workbench, can achieve the same flexibility as arc welding, and the welding equipment can be moved to realize the possibility of on-site processing anywhere.

Handheld laser welding is the most concentrated application of 1000 watts to 2000 watts, from the initial thousands of units to tens of thousands of units in later years. Its price has also dropped from nearly 100,000 yuan at the beginning to as low as 30,000 yuan today. The significant reduction in equipment costs has stimulated the procurement demand of users, and the amount of use is likely to maintain more than 100,000 units in the future.

The handheld laser welding operation is simple, the speed is very fast, more than 5 times the speed of resistance spot welding, the maintenance cost is very low, and the welding material is not required. After laser welding, the weld joint is smooth , and generally does not need to be polished again.

Welding is a high temperature to achieve the process, the general welder operators need a welding certificate or related qualifications. Strengthen personnel safety training and standardize production operations, so as to reduce accidents and prevent them before they happen.

At present, there is no clear provision for the operation of laser welding in China, only need to learn on the spot, practice can be arranged, can operate the machine can be on the job. Hand-held laser welding is even simpler. It's claimed that it can be trained in 2 hours. In order to produce safety, laser welding in the future is still hoped that there will be a unified specification of the industry, especially for laser welding operators. It's better to establishment of laser welding qualification assessment, so that the higher safety laser welding will have more ensurence.

Xi'an Guosheng Laser Technology Co., Ltd. is a high-tech enterprise specializing in R&D, manufacturing and sales of automatic laser cladding machine, high-speed laser cladding machine, laser quenching machine, laser welding machine and laser 3D printing equipment. Our products are cost-effective and sold domestically and abroad. If you're interested in our products, please contact us at bob@gshenglaser.com.