Mülheim-Kärlich, October 10, 2023 – Laserline’s appearance at this year’s formnext (November 7-10, 2023 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Hall 12.0, Booth E19) is all about sustainability. One focus will be on energy and material-efficient coating solutions for plain (friction) bearings of wind turbines (WKA) and laser cladding for brake discs on road vehicles. The respective coating concepts make a significant contribution to environmental and climate protection by utilizing the high efficiency of infrared diode lasers. The combination with effective monitoring systems, this also guarantees a high level of production reliability.
For plain (friction) bearings as used in wind turbines, laser additive welding makes it possible to generate coatings that are particularly gentle on the workpiece, that have a long service lifetime, and that are in particular more efficient in terms of energy and material consumption than conventional centrifugal casting processes. And for vehicle brake discs, an established laser cladding process realizes long-term corrosion and wear protection, thus reducing the amount of braking-induced hazardous particulate given up to the environment by up to 90 percent – a decisive contribution to more sustainable mobility. Both applications have been developed to series production readiness and will be illustrated on the formnext booth by means of videos and animated presentations.
In addition, the infrared lasers used in the Laserline LDF series will also be on display. These lasers are characterized by flexible scalability – their output can be easily expanded in the field from 12 to 24 kW, for example.
Another highlight in terms of sustainability is the first blue diode laser with 4 kW cw output power. Among others, this enables particularly energy and material efficient processes in the additive manufacturing of copper components. Its wavelength of 445 nm is absorbed five times better by copper alloys than infrared radiation, resulting in very quiet melt pools without pore formation. The gain in power to 4 kW – currently the highest power class for industrial lasers in the blue wavelength spectrum – also enables significantly higher process speeds.
Also on board are the new 10 kW diode lasers of the LDM series. Thanks to their compact 19″ format, they are not only very easy to implement in machine and system concepts for cladding applications, their exceptional packing density of 9.6 dm3/kW also means that less than 10 liters of installation space are required per kW of laser power. This is just a third of the space taken up by comparable fiber lasers, for example, and thus contributes to a significant reduction of the physical footprint for laser-based processes.
Visitors to formnext will find Laserline in Hall 12.0, Booth E19. As always, information on all exhibited products and solutions is also available online at www.laserline.com
