Lasers in the global automotive industry Available to Purchase

The use of lasers in the automotive material processing is reviewed in light of historical perspective. The current distribution of lasers in all different disciplines of beam - material interactions are reviewed in the global basis. The recent trends towards mass, cost, structure efficient automobile led to the resurgent proliferation of lasers in the automotive production floor. Some comments are also made in this paper on current application and technology development trends and future directions. The automotive industry worldwide started using laser initially for cutting and drilling applications. Both North America and Europe also implemented lasers for transmission hardening. In the early eighties, Japan’s laser activities were in embryonic stage compared to the US automotive manufacturers, but within less than ten years, it is believed that Japan leads Europe and North America both in counts of number of lasers and variety of applications. The most significant proliferation of laser processing in Japan is cutting, while the application trend in Europe and North America is welding and cutting inclusive of sheet steels for the automotive body-in-white applications. The laser applications currently implemented are cutting, drilling, welding, trimming, marking, scribing and heat treatment. The lasers used for these applications are predominantly Nd:YAG and CO₂ lasers. Novel applications such as photoablation using excimers are currently being investigated. The ten developments in laser and beam delivery system have impact on application research and implementation. In particular, a renewed interest in development of high power Nd:YAG and excimer lasers is changing the course of application research in the automotive industry.