Laser welding cells in series production · reference card
What a thermal camera records on a laser welding cell, seam by seam: the heat field, the cooling, the link to the program. How a pilot runs and what goes into the file.
On a laser cell the process is fast, narrow and enclosed. A thermal record made while each seam is welded gives quality and process engineers something to review for every part, not only for the sampled ones.
Mounting and camera choice are on the welding camera page. For which sensing method suits which failure mode, see the laser monitoring method guide.
Start with one cell and one joint. Weld good seams and seams with seeded faults, such as a set gap or reduced power, and confirm them by sections or by the inspection the contract requires. Fix scope, reference and false-alarm counting first, using the pilot acceptance checklist.
Monitoring does not replace the inspection the procedure requires. It joins program, station, thermal record and inspection result under one identifier per seam, ready for the customer file and for root-cause work when a part comes back.
| Code | Why it applies |
|---|---|
| ISO 13919-1 | Quality levels for imperfections in laser-welded joints in steel, nickel, titanium and their alloys. |
| ISO 15609-4 | Welding procedure specification for laser beam welding: the variables the procedure fixes. |
| ISO 15614-11 | Procedure qualification testing for electron and laser beam welding. |
| ISO 3834-2 | The welding quality system the records feed. |
| Pain point | Consequence | Signal that sees it |
|---|---|---|
| A seam is finished in seconds and nobody watches it | A fault is found at final inspection or not at all, after many parts have been made the same way. | A thermal record of every seam, compared with a reference from good seams on the same joint as it is made. |
| Gap, clamping and surface condition change from part to part | The laser program is identical and the joint is not, so lack of fusion between sheets appears without a parameter alarm. | Seam width and continuity in the heat field, where an unbonded length cools differently from its neighbours. |
| Heat builds up at seam starts, ends and thin sections | Burn-through or distortion appears on a few positions that a sample may not include. | Local temperature and cooling at each position of the seam, part after part. |
| Optics and shielding degrade slowly | Energy delivered to the joint drifts inside the nominal settings until parts are rejected. | A trend of the thermal record over shifts, which moves before the reject rate does. |
No. It is mounted off-axis and reads the heat field on and behind the seam. It does not see inside the keyhole, and it does not measure penetration depth directly.
No. It records and compares each seam with the reference and reports a deviation. Decisions on the process stay with the cell and its engineers.
With a pilot on one cell and one joint, good and deliberately faulty seams confirmed by sections, acceptance criteria fixed beforehand, and scaling only once they are met.
Therness measures what happens while the arc is running — parameters, thermal signature, per-weld records — so the problems on this page surface on the shift that made them.
Progetto cofinanziato nell'ambito del PR Piemonte FSE+ 2021-2027,
Priorità I, Obiettivo Specifico a), Azione 4 – "Sostegno alla nascita delle start up"
