Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWSEnergetic process design and evaluation of laser-based manufacturing methods with respect to power requirements and process efficiency
The energetic evaluation of laser-based manufacturing methods, not only, but also in comparison to competing techniques, increasingly gains importance,in particular with respect to a resource-friendly and efficient production. The effective energy or power requirements for temporal or continuous processes can be estimated according to the basic laws of thermodynamics and corresponding equations of state (including involved phase changes). These values are a measure for the theoretical feasibility of a particular process under energetic viewpoints. The ratio of theses theoretical values to actually applied laser energies or powers define the overall process efficiency.
The achievable efficiency depends on unavoidable energy and power losses during the process, involving primary losses (reflectivity and transmission losses) and secondary losses (heat conduction or overheating of the process zone). The proportion of both parts determines the most effective measures for an improvement of the process efficiency.
On the basis of our longstanding knowledge in the process design of laser material treatment we support our customers in determining energy and power requirements for laser-based manufacturing methods. In addition, we are able to evaluate the efficiency of those processes and to achieve an optimization in most cases.