Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS
A very promising possibility to shorten production process chains is the integration of the laser hardening technology in the plant and production lines of conventional mechanical production processes.
The integration of the hardening procedure in automatic lathes represents a particular challenge. IWS engineers developed a particular concept at Bosch Rexroth AG in Lohr am Main. Bosch Rexroth is one of the world’s leading specialists in the field of drive and control technologies.
The laser processes of four machines are controlled by one central "LOMPOCpro". The solution is the implementation of an intelligent priority driven switch which assigns the usage of the central high power diode laser as well as that of the control. The camera based measuring systems "Emaqs" are here applied. They enable an optimum detection of the maximum surface temperature. At the same time the process set-up is facilitated by grabbing the whole temperature range at the interaction zone with the laser. The integration of laser beam hardening into the row of the turning and milling process within the same automatic lathe reduces the throughput time from the rod to the assembling from 20 hours to 20 minutes.