Welding by Light Beams

One of the earliest welding techniques, as you might suspect, was Gas welding. Burning fuel to generate the heat required. A later development, Arc welding, eventually began to replace Gas in many industrial uses. Through these two techniques, the majority of welding operations are performed.

Among the various alternative methods for more niche and specific uses, one in particular has seen an increasing popularity – finally reaching a commercial-level.

Energy Beam Welding

Energy beam welding is the latest advancement in the chain. From fuel, to electricity, to a much more direct source of energy. Electron beam welding (EBW. Which we’ll see in a future article), is still the domain of extremely niche requirements (like micro-engineering and research equipment), with equipment costs well into millions of pounds.

Laser beam welding (LBW), however, is already accessible for professional uses, albeit eye-wateringly expensive for top-end equipment. As the name suggests, the required heat is generated by laser technology: highly-focused light into a single point. This focal point (where the energy converges at its highest temperature) offers a higher level of control, can penetrate deeper into the work, and can apply that heat much faster.

What’s It For?

Well, we aren’t seeing it used in heavy-duty uses like infrastructure. For infrastructure, the strength of the welds aren’t yet at a suitable level.

Where it does excel, however, is in smaller-scale welding. It’s capable of applying remarkably strong welds with under 1mm thickness. Hand-held and hand-operated units are seeing use in jewellery and other comparable fields, like horology. It’s most prominent use by far is in robotic industries, working with sheet metal. Most notably, in automotive manufacturing.

In automation, laser welding is a clear forerunner. The reliability of the process itself, and the precise control of heat makes it perfect for repeatable patterns. And it’s quick, too – a highly valuable trait to have in a production line. Where other welding methods would suffer from maintenance requirements and fluctuations in quality, laser welding remains consistent.

Thanks to its highly focussed and rapid application of energy, work also absorbs less heat. This results in less distortion of the piece, higher efficiency, and can work much closer to more sensitive components – where other welding methods might damage nearby material, lasers keep the energy contained within the seam area. The potential drawback is the possibility of cracking the work at higher powers – an easy thing to avoid in automation: if it works once, it will continue to work.

And to match its sci-fi feel, many high-end LBW units come with modern-tech assistance tools, like a camera feed to monitor the weld or a display to adjust and save parameters.

Will It Go Further?

The current drawbacks limiting its usage aren’t inherent in the technology itself. That is, it’s feasible that future iterations of LBW could apply comparable weld strength even on much larger scales. Although there doesn’t seem to be much demand for that at the moment, and not much motive to provide supply in the industry, that could change through future re-imaginings.

The high level of control and stability through lens focusing and power control puts it in a perfect position for future development too. While current widespread welding techniques require a spark of human ingenuity in the moment to get the conditions just right, the parameters of LBW are already controlled precisely and remotely in high-end equipment. With on-the-fly computer-controlled parameters, LBW could make for a much more reliable and easy to wield tool than it already is. For example, realigning the beam to keep the seam straight even if the operator deviates, or automatically spacing out the energy pulses to maintain an even seam.

Overall, LBW is the most likely to see some remarkable technological improvements, but these developments could take generations to make it truly widespread. And it’s unlikely that it would ever replace other welding techniques, even after many generations to come. Gas and Arc welding are still at the pinnacle of importance and usefulness in construction, it simply has a younger sibling following after them.