Electro-motorised drive + Preheating = Low-particle weld seam
Vibration welding has established itself especially in the automotive industry with short cycle times and superior compound strengths for large parts and other sophisticated applications.
In the recent past though the importance has increased of the demand for a join zone with minimal particle emission and improved optical characteristics.
BRANSON responds to these requirements with the "Clean Joint" process - the preheating of the weld zone along with quicker and dynamic movement of the welding tool by an electro-motorised drive.
Vibration Welding with CleanJoint
Vibration welding ‚CleanJoint‘ is based upon two complimentary approaches:
Preheating with infrared radiators (IR+):
By employing a preplastification of the welding surfaces integrated into the tool design the particle and fluff loss can be avoided in the first two vibration process phases. Thereby a non-contact heating by special contour-following, medium-wave metal foil emitters can start the vibration welding process "in melt", and thus create these clean joints. At the same time the friction power and weld time required for the respective material can be reduced.
Advantages/Benefits
- Avoidance of dry friction and localised melt formation during the subsequent vibration welding
- Robust, highly flexible radiation heating regardless of material and filling
- Homogeneous, notch-free weld beads without fluff are created / measurable particle loss
- Clean weld joints with increased long-term strength
- Moderate additional effort for significantly improved seam properties and clearly expanded application spectrum of vibration welding
Electro-motorised drive:
In order to reduce not only the total process time Branson has developed the electro-motorised lift table drive for this welding procedure. This is because the additional movements for the preheating need to be carried out very quickly in order to bring the join zones into contact without negative heat loss for the subsequent vibration welding. Conventional drives meet their limitations rather quickly here.
The plastification and weld force control can also be carried out in the optimal interaction between electro-motorised drive and process control appropriately for the welding phases.
Generally this drive is quieter, cleaner, more maintenance-friendly and dynamic than other drives. And it is trend-setting regarding production reliability and reproducibility.
ADVANTAGES/BENEFITS
- Increase of the lift table velocity to up to 500 mm/s
- Reduction of the cycle times (generally and in particular with IR preheating)
- Quiet highly dynamic and precise movements
- Maximal weld strengths (25000 N) are achieved by specially developed, modular linear power trains