Ultra-narrow gap laser welding of BeAl alloys. Final report Page: 4 of 10
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Ultra-Narrow Gap Laser Welding of BeAl Alloys
Final Report
Ref: 95-LANL-303-DPI
A. Parties
The project is a relationship between Los Alamos National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1663, Los
Alamos, New Mexico 87545 and
OptiCAD Corporation
P.O. Box 10123
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-6123
B. Project Scope
The original scope of the project was to develop a method to enhance the laser welding of
BeAl alloys by the use of weld joint designs based on the principals of non-imaging optics.
The projected three year program focused on the development of geometric optical models
which predict the trapping of laser energy within the weld joint and experimental validation
of these models. The first year was fully funded, meeting all expectations and deliverables
for the demonstration of the method for aluminum only. The second year funding levels did
not allow any work to be done at Los Alamos. OptiCAD continued with model development
with a change in scope to model the laser welding requirements of ongoing weapons related
programs which could provide data for model validation. The project ended at the end of
FY97 without funding a third year and never reaching the goal of welding beryllium, as a
result.
C. Technical
Despite the poor funding situation, original quality process research was accomplished and
reported as described in the three technical reports of Appendix A. Solid technical
contribution, directly applicable to weapons programs is evidenced by the inclusion of an
optically designed laser weld joint being specified on a LANL drawing of an aluminum
subassembly.
D. Partner Contributions
The industrial partner completed constructing laser ray tracing models for more than a dozen
cases involving straight, curved, tubular section and braze joints. A change was made to the
OptiCAD software package to accommodate our request to include the effects of angle
dependent laser energy absorption and is now included within their standard software
package. This library of laser welding modules contributed to the sale of the product to Oak
Ridge National Laboratory and collaborations with our UK counterparts at Aldermaston.
Puget Sound Naval Shipyard is currently interested in this software package. Had the project
continued to its proper completion, with the laboratory supplying its share of the cost shared
R&D for three years, a complete commercially viable software tool would have resulted. No
subject inventions were created during the time of this contract.
E. Documents/Reference List
No CRADA protected documents were generated. A library of laser simulation modules was
constructed and is given in Appendix B.
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Milewski, J.O. & Sklar, E. Ultra-narrow gap laser welding of BeAl alloys. Final report, report, November 1, 1998; New Mexico. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc676268/m1/4/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.