ORBITAL CUTTING AND WELDING OF STAINLESS STEEL TUBES WITH A FIBER LASER

摘要

Orbital welding is used in pipeline manufacturing andrnprefabrication, most common welding processes arernsemiautomatic GTA-, GMA- and GMA-tandem butrnalso MMA welding is still in use. These traditionalrnwelding processes have limitations concerningrnwelding speed and penetration. Modern laserrntechnology allows the use of high power with smallrnfocal point, which results in deep penetration andrnhigh welding speed. Modern solid state lasersrngenerate a beam with wavelength around 1 μm whichrncan be transported with a flexible optical fibre. Thisrnsimplifies the beam delivery in comparison to olderrnCO_2 laser technology. With a modern solid state laserrnit is possible to perform cutting and welding with thernsame laser and change of the processing head can berndone relatively fast. Orbital system with possibility tornuse two processing heads can perform joint edgerncutting as well as welding with a single laser sourcernand with same orbital tractor. This could improvernweld quality and decrease cycle time in tube to tubernwelding. This paper presents orbital cutting andrnorbital welding processes, parameters and test resultsrnaltogether with the principle of an orbital system.