Design and manufacturing tools for laser beam processing

摘要

Today's situation with increasingly shorter time-to-market limits and growing variant spectra calls for advanced methods in the manufacturing domain. A big potential for gaining faster and better manufacturing results lies in the application of offline programming, especially if processing small lot sizes. Offline programming offers as main advantage a notable reduction of deadlock times of manufacturing systems. Applying this technology there is no time consumptive teach-in on the robots necessary. A technology module based on CAD/CAM technique - mainly for 3D welding applications - is described which permits to carry out offline path and process planning including simulation and visualization of the processing task. The technology module is designed as an interactive and flexible tool to support the user in the planning phase. Simulation is utilized to visualize the manufacturing process and to detect conflicting situations like collisions or forbidden processing positions. Also the kinematics of the handling system are considered to avoid inoperable situations. The welding track with all processing parameters is displayed on a graphical user screen. The user has the possibility to modify the processing parameters interactively. After finishing simulation the CNC code is generated by a post-processor and directly transferred to the machine control. At the machine tool, the offline produced CNC code can be used directly for the laser processing application. The technology module is capable of designing cutting and welding applications in the full 3D range. The basic approach of the technology module is described as well as industrial application examples are shown.