Temporal Resolution of Acoustic Process Emissions for Monitoring Joint Gap Formation in Laser Beam Butt Welding

With the increasing power and speed of laser welding, in-process monitoring has become even more crucial to ensure process stability and weld quality. Due to its low cost and installation flexibility, acoustic process monitoring is a promising method and has demonstrated its effectiveness. Although...

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Main Authors: Sayako Kodera, Leander Schmidt, Florian Römer, Klaus Schricker, Saichand Gourishetti, David Böttger, Tanja Krüger, András Kátai, Benjamin Straß, Bernd Wolter, Jean Pierre Bergmann
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2023-09-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/13/18/10548
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Summary:With the increasing power and speed of laser welding, in-process monitoring has become even more crucial to ensure process stability and weld quality. Due to its low cost and installation flexibility, acoustic process monitoring is a promising method and has demonstrated its effectiveness. Although its feasibility has been the focus of existing studies, the temporal resolution of acoustic emissions (AE) has not yet been addressed despite its utmost importance for realizing real-time systems. Aiming to provide a benchmark for further development, this study investigates the relationship between duration and informativeness of AE signals during high-power (<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>3.5</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">k</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula><inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">W</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>) and high-speed (12 <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>/<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi>min</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>) laser beam butt welding. Specifically, the informativeness of AE signals is evaluated based on the accuracy of detecting and quantifying joint gaps for various time windows of signals, yielding numerical comparison. The obtained results show that signals can be shortened up to a certain point without sacrificing their informativeness, encouraging the optimization of the signal duration. Our results also suggest that large gaps (><inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>0.3</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula><inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula><inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula>) induce unique signal characteristics in AE, which are clearly identifiable from 1 <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula><inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula> signal segments, equivalent to <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><mn>0.2</mn></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula><inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula><inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></semantics></math></inline-formula> weld seam.
ISSN:2076-3417