Advanced Laser Transmission Welding Strategies for Fibre Reinforced Thermoplastics

AbstractLaser transmission welding can be used to join endless fibre reinforced thermoplastics. The welding temperature is affected by the heat conduction along carbon fibresand depends on the local orientation of the fibres in the weld seam and the laser welding technique itself. In these investigations the heat development during the welding with quasi-static temperature fields, which is a combination of two laser welding techniques, is evaluated and compared to welding with a homogenized intensity distribution. In order to optimize the temperature distribution over the weld seam width for both linear and curved weld seams, different scanning structures have beenadapted. The experiments were conducted with a diode laser emitting at a wavelength of 940nm and the process was monitored by aninfrared camera. The used thermoplastics consist of laminates based on unidirectional carbon fibre reinforced polyphenylenesulfide. With the developed scanning structures, a near-homogeneous temperature distribution was generated over the width of the weld seam for curved weld seams, which is not possible by welding with a homogenized laser radiation intensity distribution