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- The following report presents a fair amount of generally useful
information regarding the laser welding of thermoplastic polymers and some
detailed optical and mechanical design work that I did over the
course of several months.
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Laser Fusion Bonding of Thermoplastic
Polymers - an Overview and
Design
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Laser Welding
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Comments Regarding
my Laser Welding
Design and Analysis
Work:
- A couple of years ago I had reason to learn about ways to bond
thermoplastic polymers without the use of adhesives. I had an
application where an unusual combination of bond curing temperature,
relative coefficient of thermal expansion and corrosive acid environment
restraints ruled out cyanoacrylate, methylmethacrylate, epoxy and just about
any other adhesives that are currently available ... including the Novolac
chemical family.
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- It seemed that the only options were solvent bonding and-or some form of
thermal-fusion bonding. I determined that fusion bonding using a high
intensity infrared laser light source was the more attractive solution.
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- Subsequent discussions with laser welding equipment and service
providers helped me to understand that off-the-shelf solutions were
exquisitely expensive and would take a long time for delivery ... so ... I
decided to stretch my optical and mechanical engineering wings a little to
see what I might come up with. Some parts of the design, linked above,
were built and tested. Very fine fusion bond weld lines were obtained.
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- Generally, I have found that laser welding is a practical and useful method for fusion
bonding many common plastic materials.
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