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2003
Conference Paper
Titel
Overview of hybrid technology
Abstract
A laser beam is still a relatively expensive energy source. Therefore, hybrid pr ocesses are getting more and more popular. The word hybrid is derived from the Latin and means mixing or putting things together from different sources. The laser hybrid welding and cladding process describes the combination of the lase r process and a conventional process to a new one. The first laser hybrid proces s was the laser oxygen cutting which is a combination of laser energy and a chem ical energy coming from an exothermal reaction of the oxygen with the heated ste el. The first known laser hybrid welding process was an arc process stabilized by a laser (M. Eboo et. al. 1978); the first laser welding process supported by or combined with an arc jet was presented by E. Beyer et. al. at the ICALEO Conf erence in 1994. Since that time different papers in laser arc and laser plasma h ybrid welding have been presented by Fraunhofer followed by laser induction weld ing and cladding process. This process has been running in production for years now. The latest laser hybrid processes are the combination of CO2, Nd:YAG laser s or diode lasers and plasma spraying or plasma cladding. These processes were f irst presented at the Diode Laser Workshop in Dresden in 1999. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft took out patents on these processes as well. The interest in hybrid process technologies is demonstrated in the high number of papers presented e. g. at WLT-Conference Lasers in Manufacturing in 2001 in Munich and at the last years ICALEO Conference in Scottsdale, USA.