Today riveting is the standard process to join parts during the manufacturing of aircraft shells. Mainly, the Aluminium alloy AA2024 is applied for the skin of the fuselage. In 1987, the weldable alloy AA6013 was introduced to the market and at the beginning of the 1980s, powerful laser sources were realized.
At this time the idea for a laser beam-welding process was generated within Airbus Ger- many in order to substitute the riveting especially for the stringer skin connection. This process is based on 2 simultaneous operated CO2-Lasers with an average output power of 3.5 kW. Filler wire is used to suppress hot cracking. Meanwhile, this process has been intro-duced for the series production of the Airbus A318 and qualification is in progress for the series production of the Airbus A380.
In this paper the necessary qualification procedure is described in detail, as well as the quality requirements for this application. Special attention is given to the influence of the main process parameters, as well as to the online inspection techniques, which are used for the evaluation of the seam quality.