What Are The Problems with Laser Welding Technology in The Process of Welding Titanium Alloys?

What are the problems with laser welding technology in the process of welding titanium alloys?

Driven by the iPhone 15 Pro, titanium metal frames may regain industry attention, thereby improving production line yield and reducing production costs. In the near future, there may be a large number of smartphones following up on the application of titanium metal materials, becoming a new trend.

And titanium alloy is indeed a good shell material, lightweight and sturdy. However, with such good quality, even a little thought reveals that it will be very expensive. In addition, the interface issue with iPhone 15 is also worth paying attention to.

Titanium alloy is an ideal material for manufacturing aerospace industry products due to its low density, high strength, and strong corrosion resistance. In recent years, due to its gradual decrease in price, it has also been increasingly used in the production of civilian products. However, repairing titanium alloy materials is relatively complex, mainly due to their high melting point, and laser welding machines can precisely meet these conditions to repair and weld them. With the passage of time, laser welding technology has gradually matured, which is completely incomparable to traditional welding techniques. Laser welding machines not only have high efficiency and small heat affected areas, but can also weld areas that cannot be welded in traditional welding, and can weld a wide range of materials. And compared to traditional welding techniques, it greatly reduces costs.

The titanium alloy laser welding machine makes the welding of titanium alloys no longer a difficult problem. With the progress of the times, titanium alloy materials, with their own advantages, will inevitably become one of the main materials in the future, and laser welding machines will also be widely used in various industries, thus temporarily occupying a higher and more stable position in laser welding technology.

Applicable materials and industries for titanium alloy laser welding machines:

Mainly used for laser welding between titanium alloys, carbon steel, ordinary alloy steel, stainless steel, and different steels, such as titanium alloy stainless steel, stainless steel low-carbon steel, 416 stainless steel 310 stainless steel, 347 stainless steel nickel alloy, nickel electrode cold forged steel, bimetallic strips with different pinch contents, welding between various metals and their alloys of the same material such as titanium, nickel, tin, copper, aluminum, niobium, gold, silver, etc; Welding between various dissimilar metals such as copper nickel, nickel titanium, copper titanium, titanium molybdenum, brass copper, low-carbon steel copper, etc.

There are two completely different welding modes for the formation mechanism and welding effect of laser welding: thermal conductivity welding and deep penetration welding. There is an unstable welding process of transition between the two welding modes, that is, there is a transition interval. Therefore, in order to achieve good welding quality, first determine which welding mode to choose according to the usage requirements, and then develop appropriate welding parameters based on the welding mode: mainly laser power, welding speed, and focus position (defocus amount). In principle, titanium alloy laser welding parameters should avoid the transition zone and not approach the critical value.

The higher the power, the deeper the fusion, and the thicker the welding. However, excessive laser power can cause the appearance of the weld to deteriorate, leading to waves of protrusions and voids. When the power is constant, the welding speed determines the amount of energy input per unit length of the weld seam, that is, the line energy. As the welding speed increases, the line energy of the weld seam decreases, and the penetration depth and width decrease; Excessive welding speed can reduce the depth of penetration and even cause arc breakage, forming weld beads on the surface of the weld. When the focus is located on the surface of the workpiece, the weld seam has the maximum excess height. Only when the focus is located at a certain distance below the surface of the workpiece can the maximum penetration depth be obtained, which is related to the plate thickness and the laser power used; Excessive negative or positive defocusing can cause alternating laser deep penetration welding and heat conduction welding, resulting in highly irregular weld formation.

In titanium tube welding applications, the edges of the titanium plate are melted, and when the edges of the titanium tube are squeezed together using a clamping bracket, solidification occurs at the edges. However, for laser welding, a unique property is its high energy beam density. The laser beam not only melts the surface of the material, but also creates a keyhole, resulting in a narrow shape of the weld seam. Welding titanium alloy pipes involves first forming a flat titanium plate and then shaping it into a circular tube shape. Once formed, the joints of the titanium alloy pipes must be welded together.