Nowadays, laser beam welding is one of the major joining technologies in automotive industry, especially for a vehicle constructed with Tailored Welded Blank. However, laser beam welding still suffers from difficulties in applying to aluminum alloys and automatic controlled equipment for mass production. Especially for aluminum space frame, joined by a robot and Nd:YAG laser, presents considerable challenges due to its 3-dimensional structure.
This paper deals with a butt-welding for A6063-T6 pipes. A robot with a seam tracking system, including a CCD camera and a diode laser, is used for this welding process. Using a 6-axis industrial robot manipulator, a 3kW cw Nd:YAG laser, and a filler wire feeding device, rectangular and cylindrical pipes, as the basic primitives making up space frame structures, are joined through the 3-dimensional welding process.