Integrated heat treatment – System for precise hardening of unique tools or parts

Abstract

Heat treatment with high power diode lasers is well understood and several industrial applications suggest this technology being a reasonable complement in the field of surface heat treatment. But the necessary special knowledge for that technology is often a barrier for application. Mass production with professional fixed parameters are better accepted than single part heat treatment with the need of skilfully adapted process parameters. Because of that, single parts or low volume series are often heat treated by specialized job shops. This interrupts the in-house process chain and increases the production time significantly. A lot of costs can be saved, having a full automatically optimized and integrated heat treatment.Three different machine concepts give the possibility for different well adapted integration levels. Core of the integrated heat treatment is an off-line programming system with internal heat treatment simulation. This software generates optimized CNC-codes for generating specific heat treatment geometries from given CAD-data. A universal laser module consists of a high power diode laser, a dynamic beam shaping system and temperature sensing systems. The laser module is completed by a sixth axis to adjust the rectangular beam relatively to the feed direction for application in five-axis-machines. Six axis simultaneous movement is necessary to calculate in advance. The paper gives an overview over existing solutions developed in a strong cooperation between researchers, machine and software suppliers, and users.Heat treatment with high power diode lasers is well understood and several industrial applications suggest this technology being a reasonable complement in the field of surface heat treatment. But the necessary special knowledge for that technology is often a barrier for application. Mass production with professional fixed parameters are better accepted than single part heat treatment with the need of skilfully adapted process parameters. Because of that, single parts or low volume series are often heat treated by specialized job shops. This interrupts the in-house process chain and increases the production time significantly. A lot of costs can be saved, having a full automatically optimized and integrated heat treatment.Three different machine concepts give the possibility for different well adapted integration levels. Core of the integrated heat treatment is an off-line programming system with internal heat treatment simulation. This software generates optimized CNC-codes for generating specific heat t...