Coated material welding with multiple energy beams

Abstract

To overcome 1) the high levels of porosity due to coating material vaporization and entrapment into the weld, 2) spewing of molten base metal from the weld leaving holes and pits in the weld, and 3) humping effects when oblong beam configurations are used at higher weld speeds to weld coated materials, the present invention features an energy source (10) with multiple separated energy beams (24, 26) (formed by using multiple separate beam sources or manipulation of a single beam (14) into separated multiple energy beams (44, 46) using wedge mirror (18) and parabolic focusing mirror (20)) that produces high quality (porosity free) lap welds in a weld stack (50) of layered materials (30, 32) coated with coating material (28, 28′, 34, 34′) with zero gap at interface (38) during the welding process. An energy source (12) with multiple, separated energy beams (24, 26) extends the beam keyhole and increases the time and conditions available for vapor/gas to diffuse less violently through the molten weld pool.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.