Laser beam welding of aircraft fuselage structures

The efforts of the aircraft industry to reduce the structural weight of passenger aircrafts are additionally boosted by dramatically raising fuel prices. As demonstrated by Airbus Company, laser beam welding is a promising and meanwhile industrially proved technology to reduce simultaneously both weight and production costs of metallic fuselages of civil passenger jets. In a next step it is necessary to create the preconditions for a wider and more effective use of laser welding. Key elements for this way are: . the development of both, advanced welded structure design principles and welding strategies for these new structures to improve such important properties as e. g. damage tolerance . the welding technology developments for new, lighter and better processable Al-alloys . new, cheaper and more flexible production processes. The paper summarizes some new results obtained from these methods. The following developments are presented: . stiffener designs and weld seam arrangements with improved mechanical properties such as buckling behavior and damage tolerance . laser welding of advanced Al-Li-alloys . a new very flexible laser beam welding machine especially designed for welding of big 3D-components . laser welding strategies for joining of integral welded fuselage panels