Implementation of a multispot optic for temperature field-adapted welding of complex plastic components

New lightweight construction concepts should make it possible to reduce the weight of aircrafts and vehicles. This has an effect on energy consumption, in order to reduce CO2 emissions. New material combinations are used to implement these concepts, or in some cases, plastics substitute metals. The production of single-variety plastic components is particularly advantageous, as these can be returned into a recycling cycle. Thermoplastics are suitable for the production of such composites. If such parts are joined by means of adhesive bonding, the adhesive would remain on the components and prevent sorted recycling. Welding does not have this disadvantage. Wide weld seams are required for the transmission of high forces. Applying laser welding, wide weld seams could be generated using conventional beam shaping techniques using a homogeneous intensity distribution. However, such an intensity distribution is critical if the component geometry has small radii. To solve this problem, a welding system was developed as part of the MultiSpot project, which makes it possible to adapt the intensity distribution to the weld path. For the evaluation of the new welding system, different intensity distribution profiles were developed based on bead on plate welds and then transferred to the demonstrator components.