Laser welding apparatus and laser welding method
AssigneeNHK Spring Co., Ltd.
InventorsAsato Yamamoto, Tadashi Tokiwa
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A laser welding apparatus includes a laser medium, an excitation light source and a control unit. The control unit supplies drive power to the excitation light source to inject excitation energy to the laser medium. The control unit supplies preliminary excitation power, which is smaller than pulsed drive power, to the excitation light source over a preliminary supply time, which is longer than a pulse width of the drive power before welding the first weld to be welded. After the preliminary supply time elapses and then an interval, the pulsed drive power is supplied to the excitation light source to weld the first weld.
Claims5
A laser welding apparatus for sequentially welding a plurality of welds of a workpiece by laser beams output in a pulse form, the apparatus comprising:
- a laser medium which emits the laser beam for the welds while excitation energy is injected thereto;
- an excitation light source which injects the excitation energy to the laser medium while drive power is supplied thereto;
- a control unit which supplies the drive power of a pulse form for the excitation energy to the excitation light source;
- a workpiece support portion on which a plurality of workpieces each identical to the workpiece are placed;
- and
- a moving mechanism which moves the workpieces placed on the workpiece support portion toward a welding stage and stops a workpiece to be welded at the welding stage,
- wherein the control unit, before welding the first weld to be welded of the plurality of welds, executes processes comprising:
- injecting energy less than the excitation energy to the laser medium by supplying a preliminary excitation power, which is lower than the drive power, to the excitation light source over a preliminary supply time that is longer than a pulse width of the drive power, the preliminary excitation power being supplied to the excitation light source while the workpieces placed on the workpiece support portion are being moved toward the welding stage, and
- allowing an interval which is shorter than the preliminary supply time to elapse before welding the first weld after the preliminary supply time elapses.
A laser welding method for sequentially welding a plurality of welds of a workpiece by laser beams output in a pulsed manner, the method comprising:
- injecting, before welding the first weld to be welded of the plurality of welds, energy less than the excitation energy to a laser medium by supplying a preliminary excitation power, which is lower than a drive power and creates excitation energy, to an excitation light source over a preliminary supply time that is longer than a pulse width of the drive power, the preliminary excitation power being supplied to the excitation light source while the workpiece, placed on a workpiece support portion, is being moved toward the welding stage;
- allowing an interval which is shorter than the preliminary supply time to elapse before welding the first weld after the preliminary supply time elapses;
- injecting the excitation energy to the laser medium by supplying the drive power to the excitation light source after the interval elapses;
- and
- emitting the laser beam for the first weld from the laser medium by the excitation energy.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.