EMAG's Laser Welding Machine: Single Source for Machining Electric Cars' Rotor Shafts
Sales of electric cars are on the rise. As a result, production planners are focusing on the manufacture of key components of the e-motor, such as the rotor shaft. They are looking for innovative solutions "from a single source," with which the component can be machined efficiently and reliably in ever larger quantities.
EMAG LaserTec is currently setting an example in the market with its ELC 6 laser welding machine. In the machine, joining, preheating and welding processes are compactly combined on an assembled rotor shaft with its rotary table system ensuring optimum cycle times.
The production of assembled rotor shafts is always about manufacturing tolerance -- even minimal imbalances must be avoided at all costs because they would endanger the service life of the engine. In addition, the process must result in a highly stable component.
All Processes in Rapid Change
It is precisely this quality that the German laser specialists have been bringing to the production of assembled rotor shafts for some time now.
The ELC 6 machine is at the center of this -- a highly efficient solution for joining the two halves of the component, with part handling, preheating and joining as well as welding taking place in quick succession and perfectly timed by the rotary table.
The precisely metered, concentrated energy of the laser beam permits high welding speeds with minimal distortion on the welded component. A look at the details reveals the performance of the machine, which was specially developed for powertrain components with circumferential welds:
- Before the individual parts are loaded into the ELC 6, the workpieces are laser cleaned. For this purpose, EMAG LaserTec offers the LC 4 laser cleaning machine, which can be optimally linked-up with the ELC 6, thus ensuring seamless line integration.
- In the next step in ELC 6 (preheating and joining), the induction technology first ensures an ideal processing temperature on the component before the two components are joined.
- Before welding, the weld seam position is checked and the component position is readjusted. The contour is scanned with precision and the data is communicated to the welding optics and the NC axes.
- During the subsequent welding process, the vertically arranged workpiece rotates, while the laser optics only move radially towards the workpiece. The welding process with its focused energy thus takes place virtually from the side at the circumferential weld. A pyrometer controls the process temperature.
- After welding, the component is transported out of the machine by a swiveling motion of the rotary table and unloaded by a robot.
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Overall, this solution has an enormous production speed -- partly because the machine with its rotary table is loaded and unloaded during welding (and thus cycle time-concurrent).
In addition, the individual subprocesses are perfectly synchronized. The "fixed optics/moving workpiece" principle ensures a high level of operational reliability. In addition, EMAG LaserTec designs this solution very flexibly for customers in terms of technology, output and automation, whereby workpieces up to a maximum height of 300 millimeters can be machined in the ELC 6.
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