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This study focuses on the experimental evaluation of the effect of angular positioning errors on the quality of micro laser spot welding in stainless (inox) kitchen and hotel equipment applications. Obtaining the correct welding parameters to join thin stainless materials without causing visible defects is an extremely delicate process. The welding process must be precise enough to avoid any visual defects on the visible part of the stainless surface while also ensuring that the connection is strong enough to withstand the life of the device. Experiments conducted in this study reveal that the most common operator error in manual spot welding is angular misalignment between the laser beam and the plate surface. Certain welding parameters, such as laser signal intensity and duration, were kept constant to demonstrate the effect of welding angles. Then, welded samples were prepared with various laser beam angles, and tensile tests were used to measure the maximum loads each weld point could carry. Experiments show that when spot welding is done on thin stainless steel at angles larger than the critical welding angle, heat-induced scars or micro deformations occur on the visible surface of the thin stainless material. In addition, the flow of the lens protective gas is blocked as the outlet opening narrows and the life of the lens is shortened. On the contrary, it is understood that a sufficiently wide weld area cannot be created at angles larger than the critical weld angle. The study uses experimental findings to determine the optimal torch angle range for available laser welding parameters. The results highlight that the laser beam angle must be precisely adjusted within a narrow range in visual micro-laser welding applications, making it difficult for the operator to distinguish by sight.
Keywords: Inox, stainless, steel, sheet metal, micro-laser, welding© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.