Laser Offers advantage for welding steel wheel rims

The properties of laser-welded wheel rims were considered good enough for the process to be used in production in the auto industry. The use of lasers has increased and become widespread in many manufacturing operations, such as material processing, measuring, quality control processing, and automation. It is a competitive, energy-saving process with high user satisfaction. The disk materials, which are cut as circular blanks, are formed with flow forming machines or presses. The center holes, ventilation holes, and bolt holes are punched out with presses, then lathed and counter sinked to precise dimensions. The rims and disks, which are formed last, are pressed against each other then welded using the submerged arc or gas metal arc welding processes. There are few publications about using laser processing in the manufacturing of wheel rims. In addition, using the laser welding method is more common when compared with other methods. For instance, Caprioglio developed and patented a system to assemble rim to disk with laser welding.