Two years ago I moved with my family from sunny California to the UK. My friends couldn’t understand that the GSI, Rugby opportunity, for me, was so great that it could outweigh the British weather. The materials processing market is the single largest segment in the laser industry. GSI Group, Laser Division offered me an opportunity I have not run into in my 25 year ‘laser’ career. Combining more than 35 years of industrial laser manufacturing experience with the new opportunities offered by their Fiber Laser technology products in a double digit growth sector promised to be an exciting time.

Unfortunately though, not only had I picked one of the worst summers in UK history to make the move to GSI, but more importantly it was the year the world’s worst economic downturn in 20 years hit the UK.

Things are starting to look a lot brighter now, the weather included. Business has picked up quite strongly and we are seeing many of our customers make a move towards fiber laser technology. We’ve acknowledged that this is not always the best solution for everyone though GSI can offer conventional as well as fiber laser based solutions.

I’ll never forget what I read once on the back of a business card, handed to me by one of our customers; “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of a low price is forgotten”. In a global economy coming out of recession where low price is seen as the key driver, we would all do well to remember this. I think of quality as “doing the right thing right”, and so a focus on good quality will make our industry a better place for us all to be.

We are looking at a brighter future and hopefully a sunny summer this year.

Phillippe Brak
E: pbrak@GSIG.com

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15 April 2010
Aerotech - U500 last chance ordering
Aerotech's extremely popular U500 motion control and laser syncing (PSO) PC card which has been serving the laser industry for over 15 years will be withdrawn from Aerotech’s product range this month. Some of the components are becoming extremely difficult to source. We are advising customers to contact Aerotech with respect to covering themselves for spares on U500 cards and DR drive racks.

14 April 2010
Rofin Lasers Marked for LED Processing
The development of LED’s is expected to continue over the coming decades to the point where they become one of the predominant light sources

14 April 2010
Laser Marking Laminated Aluminum Foil Pouches
Aluminum foil is a common material for packaging a variety of food and non-food products. It offers durability, resistance to chemical degradation, and impermeability to water vapor and gases, in addition to being relatively inexpensive compared to similar packaging materials

30 March 2010
New Amada remote electronic service reporting system set to benefit UK customers
Amada UK Ltd has designed, developed and implemented a bespoke electronic service reporting system in order to offer its customers a number of important advantages

30 March 2010
Coherent Releases Excimer Laser IndyStar with 2kHz
Coherent Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) (Nasdaq: COHR) has added a new model to their popular IndyStar family of compact excimer lasers that offers higher repetition rate (2kHz) for increased throughput

29 March 2010
In-tech 2010, open house 11th – 13th May 2010 at Trumpf UK, Luton
UK manufacturing currently has a golden opportunity. For the first time in many years, the UK exchange rate is making British manufacture a truly viable option for many overseas OEMs

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The articles below are from the Winter 2009 Issue of the AILU Magazine

Remote fibre laser welding as a comparative joining method for body in white applications

The application of remote fibre laser welding for the joining of automotive structures can now be seriously considered as an alternative to the traditional joining processes of resistance spot welding (steel) and self pierce riveting (aluminium). Work at the University of Warwick has been undertaken with key industrial partners to review remote laser welding against the current core processes and to evaluate its comparative performance.

Although the installation cost of a cell for remote laser welding is comparable to that for competing manufacturing processes (analysis not shown here) the inherent flexibility of the process brings significant savings in the reuse of equipment for follow on or concurrent production of parts.

Remote fibre laser welding has been found to produce joints of comparable quasi-static strength to those produced by existing joining processes.

With the reduced costs per Watt from higher power lasers more companies are looking at the benefits of remote welding systems.

The Remote Fibre Laser Welding Programme, funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board and based at the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), has aimed to answer the challenges
of utilising this fast, flexible process, and to benchmark remote laser welding against existing turnkey systems suitable for OEM and 1st tier supplier implementation.

Richard Hewitt and Nic Blundell - University of Warwick

IMAGE: The facility at the University of Warwick supported by Prima Industrie, Comau, Stadco, Jaguar/Landrover and Corus. Courtesy - University of Warwick

AILU members can log in to the AILU web site and download this article free of charge. Otherwise click here to order a copy’

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High-power Yb-fibre laser welding of heavy-section tube-to-tubesheet assemblies

Mangiarotti S.p.A. is a key player in a variety of sectors, including oil and gas. Tubeto-tubesheet welding forms a major part of their manufacturing operations and this is currently done using manual, orbital semi-automatic or fully automatic tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding.

TIG is an established process and is approved in various construction codes relevant to this application. To achieve the required joint geometry and mechanical performance, full-strength welds are typically produced by multipass TIG welding with filler wire addition. The welding time per tube can easily exceed one minute and a heat exchanger can comprise 5000 tubes or more. As a result, the total  elding time is a large proportion of the total manufacturing
time and the total heat-input for TIG welding a complete tubesheet is typically of the order of 40MJ/m², which may result in high levels of stresses and distortion of the assembly.

Initial results have demonstrated that good quality welds can be produced with cycle times between 2 and 10 times faster than currently achieved by the TIG process This saving is in welding time only; an additional saving is made in overcoming the need for the tubesheet preparation required for TIG welding. Furthermore, the heat input with laser welding was estimated to be only 10% of that of the TIG process, greatly reducing deformation of the tubesheet.

Davide Kleiner Research & Development Department of Mangiarotti S.p.A., Udine, Italy and Geert Verhaeghe - Laser and Sheet Processes Group at TWI Ltd, Cambridge, UK

IMAGE: FProcess head arrangement with vision system in position. The vision system and Precitec welding head are mounted on pneumatic slides and are toggled depending on whether the system is performing a centring or a welding operation. Courtesy Manguarotti S.p.A & TWI.

AILU members can log in to the AILU web site and download this article free of charge. Otherwise click here to order a copy’

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27 April 2010
21st Century Applications of Power Photonics
“21st Century Applications of Power Photonics” Power Photonics technology is playing an increasingly important role in manufacturing and 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the first working laser, developed by Theodore Maiman at Hughes Research Lab in 1960. Initially a wonder of science and then an industrial tool the rate of development of laser sources and applications continues unabated. This seminar concentrates on 21st century manufacturing needs, singling out recent applications that illustrate the scope and potential of the laser revolution.

27-28 April 2010
Mtec - Sensors, Measurement and Instrumentation
Mtec is the complete sensors, measurement and instrumentation event for the UK and Ireland and features technology related to instruments and techniques for practical measurement as required in engineering, utility, process, chemistry and life sciences sectors, including: • Sensors • Instrumentation • Hardware • Techniques • Information Processing Systems • Automatic Data Acquisition

28-29 April 2010
Laser Engineering for Your Business
The North West Laser Engineering Consortium is the largest university based laser processing research group in the UK and works with a large number of companies. It consists of laser processing research groups at the Universities of Manchester and Liverpool. The Knowledge Exchange for Laser Processing project aims to enable North West companies to benefit from the advantages that laser technology offers to companies working across a broad range of sectors, including Aerospace, Biomedical, Energy, Automotive, Manufacturing and Consumer Goods.

19 May 2010
Tools for the 21st Century - Recent developments in laser sources and systems for manufacturing
Concentrating on the many exciting developments that have occurred within the last two years, this workshop addresses technological developments in industrial-grade laser sources and systems. The importance of these developments will be illustrated in terms of new or improved real manufacturing processes and particular focus will be placed on what are termed the 21st century challenges in manufacturing: including power generation; transport with reduced CO2 impact; improved healthcare and quality of life, security and communications; high added value, flexible manufacturing.

7 June 2010
MACH2010
MACH 2010 is the place to be if you want to see the latest in manufacturing technologies. Be it metal cutting, metal forming or associated technologies, services and equipment - MACH 2010 has it all. Visit the AILU and the Photonics and Plastic Electronics KTN at stand 4448.

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