Polygon scanning system for high-power, high-speed microstructuring

Abstract

A key requirement in automotive industry is reducing weight through innovative lightweight construction concepts. For multi-material construction the manufacture of plastic-metal hybrids poses a particular challenge due to the chemical and physical dissimilarity. At Fraunhofer ILT, a process chain has been developed for connecting thermoplastics with metals. First, the metal surface is microstructured with laser radiation to create undercut structures for the interlocking of polymer and metal, which are connected afterwards via a thermal joining process. Although laser-microstructuring is already a fast process, for automotive cycle times higher processing speeds are required. In this contribution a new polygon-based scanning system is combined with a 2 kW single mode fiber laser for a continuous high-speed microstructuring process of metals as pretreatment for local UD-tape-reinforcements. The scanner setup and first microstructuring results on different metals are presented.