Integrated laser beam hardening in turning machines for process chain reduction

Laser beam hardening has been established during the last years as a complementary technology for local heat treatment tasks at tool manufacturing and automotive industry. Especially new high power diode lasers and a lot of process supporting systems, what have been developed in recent years, are responsible for the increase of industrial laser hardening applications. On the other hand heat treatment usually is a separate process in machine parts manufacturing so far. It is done in separate shops in-house or externally. A lot of logistics, quality checking and administrative work are necessary. Having this process in the same machine where the part is turned from a rod, and making the finishing hard turning process in that very same machine is an old dream but is materialized now and runs in mass production. The presentation gives an overview of principal technical solutions and presents an example where one laser feeds three different machines via dynamic beam sharing.