Refine
Document Type
Language
- English (2)
Has Fulltext
- no (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (2)
Keywords
- image processing (2) (remove)
Institute
Begutachtungsstatus
- peer-reviewed (1)
Quality and reliability are of the utmost importance for manufacturing in the optical and medical industries. Absorber-free laser transmission welding enables the precise joining of identical polymers without additives or adhesives and is well-suited to meet the demands of the aforementioned industries. To attain sufficient absorption of laser energy without absorbent additives, thulium fiber lasers, which emit in the polymers’ intrinsic absorption spectrum, are used. Focusing the laser beam with a high numerical aperture provides significant intensity gradients inside the workpiece and enables selective fusing of the internal joining zone without affecting the surface of the device. Because seam size and position are crucial, the high-quality requirements demand internal weld seam monitoring. In this work, we propose a novel method to determine weld seam location and size using optical coherence tomography. Changes in optical material properties because of melting and re-solidification during welding allow for weld seam differentiation from the injection-molded base material. Automatic processing of the optical coherence tomography data enables the identification and measurement of the weld seam geometry. The results from our technique are consistent with microscopic images of microtome sections and demonstrate that weld seam localization in polyamide 6 is possible with an accuracy better than a tenth of a millimeter.
Absorber-free laser transmission welding enables clean and precise joining of plastics without additives or adhesives. It is therefore well suited to produce optical and medical devices, which place high demands on cleanliness and accuracy.
However, the weld usually has an undesirably large vertical expansion, causing bulges and distortion. To improve this, the intensity distribution of the laser beam as well as the processing strategy must be adapted. Due to the complexity, this is aided by process simulation. However, simulation parameter calibration and verification are usually done considering the seam width and height, which is of limited significance. To overcome this, we propose a new method for image processing of microtome sections, determining the spatially resolved geometry of the weld. Thus, the deviation between experiment and simulation can be calculated pixel by pixel. This spatially resolved value is predestined for the calibration of the simulation parameters: For a parameter field with 18 different settings, the total deviation between experiment and simulation is less than 11 % after calibration.