2010 Award Winners
Award-winning project: Novel laser welding process for rotationally symmetrical components
Project partners: Stadtmüller GmbH | Steinbeis-Transferzentrum Produktion und Organisation Pforzheim
Changes in climatic conditions have led to high growth rates in the air-conditioning and ventilation sector in recent years. In addition to air-conditioning residential, commercial and public spaces, the cooling and freezing of foodstuffs represents a broad field of application.
Stadtmüller GmbH, a medium-sized company based in Osterburken, supplies this sector not only with rotors but, above all, with safety grilles for fans and ventilation units. Stadtmüller manufactures exclusively in Germany and regards itself as a leading manufacturer in the field of industrial wire processing. The wide variety of products, types and variants specified by customers, combined with highly automated production involving many individual process steps, necessitates significant financial expenditure on type-specific jigs and tools. In addition to this complexity, market behaviour is characterised primarily by very short-notice orders for products, as a considerable proportion of turnover is generated in project-based business, which is difficult to plan.
Working in close collaboration, the experts at the Steinbeis Transfer Centre for Production & Organisation in Pforzheim developed new welding processes with Stadtmüller using laser technology, enabling safety grilles to be fully welded in a single operation. The key advantage for operational practice lies not only in the cost reduction for jigs and tools but, above all, in a drastically reduced lead time and the simplification of in-house production logistics and control.
The new technology focuses on laser follow-up welding, in which rotationally symmetrical components – which have only point or line contact in the contact zone – can be welded reliably using a laser. In laser follow-up welding, a very fine laser beam, which is directed through one of the joining partners, creates a micro-melt in the contact zone. Whilst being pressed together, the two joining partners move relative to one another, thereby increasing the bonding cross-section. This means that, for the first time, components with gaps can now also be welded using laser technology. A further significant step in the development is the design and construction of a robot-assisted laser welding cell with integrated, offline-programmed scanner optics and active tolerance compensation. Conventional laser welding systems are not suitable for implementing the new process. In a further collaboration between the two partners, the process will be refined and developed to series production readiness as part of a funded joint project.