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IDEAL Laser Coil Joining Technology Being Used at ThyssenKrupp Electrical Steel

The story of success continues for the German based IDEAL-Werk for supplying laser welding machines to the steel industry. After having secured a substantial number of machine orders in Asia, IDEAL recently successfully commissioned a machine at ThyssenKrupp Electrical Steel (TKES) Gelsenkirchen in Germany.
After thorough studies TKES has to use the IDEAL concept for laser cutting and laser welding based on the following key advantages:
The latest grain oriented steel grades require special attention to the strip edge preparation and, in this respect, laser cutting has proven to guarantee the best performance. As a result, one achieves in an un-welded butt joint a zero gap between the strip head and strip tail. Along with this, a rather narrow heat-affected zone can be managed, as the focal point when welding comes to only Ø 0.2 mm. The general problem of the extreme brittleness of these particular steel qualities after welding is being solved by an online, integrated post annealing system, which takes care of the recrystallization of the remaining heat-affected zone.