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CORUS COMMISSIONS €2M LASER WELDING AND BRAZING RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT FACILITY FOR THE AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR
The new facility will be based at the company’s R&D centre in IJmuiden in the Netherlands and already has a full schedule of Automotive R&D programmes. The centre, which represents an investment of over €2 million, will provide Corus with a valuable off-line capability to further understand the cost, safety, weight and cosmetic benefits of laser welding and importantly be directly involved with the growing area of laser brazing, an innovative new joining technique, which is now starting to be exploited in the Automotive area. Corus anticipates that there will be a growing trend by vehicle manufacturers globally to adopt laser brazing and welding, with German carmakers in particular pushing hard for these joining technologies. The new centre will allow Corus to determine the performance of materials during laser welding and brazing, thus enabling the company to improve material properties, to maximise the benefits for vehicle manufacturers. For example, Corus will be able to research the effect of different coatings and pre-treatments, improve joining of components such as hydroformed tubes and make prototype tailor-welded blank components in steel or aluminium for automotive customer evaluation. The new centre will house 4.5kW Nd:YAG (neodymium-yttrium aluminium garnet) and 6kW carbon dioxide lasers, which have the ability to cut and weld steel, aluminium and other materials of different thickness as well as parts ranging from flat panels to complicated three dimensional components. Commenting on the new facility and the benefits to automakers, Peter Jongenburger, chief technology officer, Corus, said: “The automotive industry is continually looking at ways to improve its manufacturing processes that lead to stronger and safer vehicles whilst maintaining visual appeal and reducing production costs. Corus can help carmakers meet these objectives through its investment in the new laser welding and brazing R&D facility. It further underlines our commitment to work downstream with vehicle manufacturers, and generate added value through the combination of the latest manufacturing processes with our materials expertise.” The advantages of using laser welding for certain automotive applications have already been recognised by vehicle manufacturers. These advantages include a better quality weld due to a narrower heat affected zone and reduced deformation of the structure due to the lower heat input. Laser brazing is an advanced process combining the benefits of brazing with all the advantages of using a laser. The traditional brazing process involves the melting of a ‘filler’ material between two parts to form the joint, thus helping to reduce the risk of adversely affecting the properties of the parent materials by the heat source. By using a laser to melt the weld filler, the temperature required can more easily be controlled and importantly, the heat source can be accurately directed onto the filler material, further reducing any risk of detrimental effects on the parent materials. Laser welding and brazing offer a number of strength and safety benefits over traditional welding techniques. As long recognised by racecar teams, a continuous seam, whether produced by direct laser welding, traditional brazing or the latest laser-assisted brazing techniques, produces a stronger weld than a traditional seam of resistance spot welds, leading ultimately to a stiffer body structure, which in turn results in improved passenger passive safety. Dr Jongenburger continues: “A stiffer body structure also leads to improved vehicle handling. Consequently, a driver behind the wheel of a more responsive car has significantly enhanced active safety.” Corus continues to invest in high added value downstream activities, which have recently included the world’s first production-ready machine for producing laser-welded tubular blanks. This was commissioned at the Corus Hyfo Competence Centre, which is also located at the IJmuiden site. Additionally, in the UK a new multi-strand blanking line is being installed at the company’s specialist Automotive Service Centre in Wednesfield, to help meet increased demand from vehicle manufacturers for precision skin panel blanks. Corus Autolaser Technologies, located at the company’s 50-acre Steelpark in the West Midlands, was also the first facility in Europe to have the capability to manufacture production volumes of non-linear Nd:YAG laser welded blanks.
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