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Aluminum tailor welded blanks in the automotive industry continues to grow due to the light weight of aluminum itself and the characteristics of the tailor welded blanks. It has been found that welding of aluminum blanks with co2 laser is difficult but doable in a production environment and using high power CW Nd:YAG laser can obtain sound results with a much wider process parameter window. However, currently, high power CO2 lasers (in the range of 8 kW) are still the dominate laser sources in steel tailor welded blank companies in north America. Will these lasers be able to weld aluminum tailored blanks if the demand of aluminum tailor welded blanks increases? This study employed twin spot and beam shaping methods to weld 1mm combined with 2 mm tailored blanks using high power (9 kW maximum) CO2 laser for both 5754-O and 6111-T4 alloys. The results show that high power CO2 lasers can be used for welding 5754-O and 6111-T4 aluminum alloys with very precise parameter settings.

The automotive industry is in constant pursuit of alternative materials and processes to address the ever changing needs of their customer and the environment. This paper presents findings from a study using a laser hybrid process (laser with MIG) to join aluminum-silicon coated boron steel (USIBOR). In this report the influence of heat from the laser hybrid welding process and its effect on the coated boron steel is discussed. In order to understand the affect from laser hybrid joining process, bead on plate experiments were conducted using 1.0 mm, 1.6 mm and 2.0 mm thick coupons. Further, two lap joint configurations were also investigated using the 1.6 mm and 2.0 mm thick coupons. Based on the test results, a significant reduction in tensile strength was observed at the Heat Affected Zone (HAZ).