Glossary for technical terms
Among other things for laser, welding, additive manufacturing, 3D printing of metal and directed energy deposition
Our coaxworks glossary contains technical terms that are relevant to our products, services and applications in the field of laser wire deposition.
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Most of the definitions used here can also be found here or at the individual country-specific standardisation institutes:
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3D printing means the ‘fabrication of objects through the deposition of a material using a print head, nozzle or another printer technology’.
[ISO/ASTM 52900:2021, Additive manufacturing — General principles — Fundamentals and vocabulary]
We carry out 3D printing with metal. The filler wire is melted for this. From the production of prototypes to customised designs - 3D printing is flexible in its applications.Additive manufacturing means the ‘process of joining materials to make parts from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing and formative manufacturing methodologies’. ‘Historical terms include: additive fabrication, additive processes, additive techniques, additive layer manufacturing, layer manufacturing, solid freeform fabrication and freeform fabrication.’
[ISO/ASTM 52900:2021, Additive manufacturing — General principles — Fundamentals and vocabulary]
We carry out additive manufacturing with metal. From the production of prototypes to customised designs - additive manufacturing is flexible in its applications.Similar terms: focus, focal point
The beam waist means the ‘portion of a beam where the beam diameter or beam width has a local minimum’.[ISO 11145:2018, Optics and photonics — Lasers and laser-related equipment — Vocabulary and symbols]
The beam waist is thus the most energetic area of the laser beam and the place where the welding process is carried out. We also feed the 3 partial laser beams into our beam waist to melt the welding wire evenly.Similar term: build up [ISO/TR 25901-1]
Building up means ‘overlay welding to obtain or restore required dimensions’.[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
The wire material is used for the building up. The terms building up and surfacing are used in a similar way.Similar terms: curvature, bend
The cast is defined as the ‘diameter of some loops of wire placed on a flat surface without restraint’.[ISO 544:2017, Welding consumables — Technical delivery conditions for filler materials and fluxes — Type of product, dimensions, tolerances and markings]
Similar terms: coating, film
The cladding means a ‘material deposited on the parent material in order to produce a clad material’.[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
The cladding process means ‘surfacing used for applying cladding’. ‘Cladding processes are overlay welding, hot rolling, explosive welding, etc.’
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]Similar term: application rate
The deposition rate means the ‘mass of metal deposited per unit of productive weld time’.[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
The welding consumable in our case is the wire material [EN 544]. The deposition rate is therefore the amount of molten filler wire per time - the deposition rate is therefore usually specified in kg/h.The dilution means the ‘mixing of melted parent metal and deposited metal expressed as a ratio of the melted parent metal to the total melted mass’.
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]Directed energy deposition means ‘additive manufacturing process in which focused thermal energy is used to fuse materials by melting as they are being deposited’. ‘ “Focused thermal energy” means that an energy source (for example laser, electron beam or plasma arc) is focused to melt the materials being deposited.’
[ISO/ASTM 52900:2021, Additive manufacturing — General principles — Fundamentals and vocabulary]A filler material means a ‘welding consumable added during welding to form the weld‘.
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
The filler wire is a filler material. The filler material can be used to fill welds, for example if the actual workpiece no longer has enough parent metal at the desired weld.The filler wire means a ‘filler material in the form of a wire which can be a part of the welding circuit’.
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]The fusion penetration means the ‘depth to which the fusion face of the parent metal has been fused’.
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]Fusion welding means ‘welding involving localized melting without the application of external force in which the fusion surface(s) has (have) to be melted with or without addition of filler material’
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
The filler material in our case is the wire material [EN 544]. The filler wire makes it possible to add material during fusion welding and thus to repair, for example. Fusion welding is a popular method of joining metals firmly.A gas shield is a ‘shroud of gas surrounding the weld zone to protect the weld pool from chemical reaction with the surrounding atmosphere’.
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]Similar terms: axis, positioning, robot, handling device
A handling unit means (along with measurement systems and control systems and laser assembly) the part of a laser unit that is responsible for positioning between the processing head and the workpiece. [ISO 11145]Hardfacing means ‘overlay welding to increase wear and/or impact resistance’.
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
Hardfacing is one application that can be carried out with our laser wire deposition. In addition to hardfacing, other surface properties can also be modified with the metal coating or used for repairs, for example.Similar terms: pitch, twist
‘The helix is defined as the vertical seperation between any part of one loop of wire placed on a flat surface without restraint and the flat surface.’[ISO 544:2017, Welding consumables — Technical delivery conditions for filler materials and fluxes — Type of product, dimensions, tolerances and markings]
An interchangeable equipment ‘means a device which, after the putting into service of machinery or of a tractor, is assembled with that machinery or tractor by the operator himself in order to change its function or attribute a new function, in so far as this equipment is not a tool’.
[Directive 2006/42/EC on machinery, European Union]
This is defined in more detail in the ‘Guide to the application of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC’, edition 2.2, European Commission with examples.Our products laser welding heads fall under this definition the definition of interchangeable equipment. They are the interchangeable equipment processing heads for the basic machine laser processing machine.
A Laser means a ‘device having an energized amplifying medium within an optical resonator that generates coherent electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths up to 1 mm by means of amplified stimulated emission’.
[ISO 11145:2018-11, Optics and photonics — Lasers and laser-related equipment — Vocabulary and symbols]Similar term: laser cladding
Laser beam cladding means overlay welding by means of laser welding. [ISO 15609-4]
Laser beam cladding is the generic term for laser wire deposition.Similar term: DED-LB/M [ISO/ASTM 52900, ISO/ASTM TR 52912]
Laser metal deposition means a directed energy deposition (DED) with a laser beam (-LB) on metallic materials (/M). [ISO/ASTM 52900, ISO/ASTM TR 52912]
Laser wire deposition is a part of laser metal deposition. In our laser metal deposition process, the metal of the filler wire is deposited by welding. The filler wire, including a small part of the metal workpiece, is melted and firmly bonded.Similar terms: laser unit [ISO 11145], machining center [ISO 10791], CNC machine, laser cell
A laser processing machine means a ‘machine in which (an) embedded laser(s) provide(s) sufficient energy or power to melt, evaporate, or cause a phase transition in at least a part of the workpiece, and which is ready to use in function and safety’.[ISO 11553-1:2020-04, Safety of machinery — Laser processing machines — Part 1: Laser safety requirements]
The laser processing machine is, for our laser welding head (processing head, as interchangeable equipment), the basic machinery [Guidance to application of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC, edition 2.2, European Commission]. The laser processing machine also includes safety requirements.Similar term: laser beam welding
Laser welding means ‘fusion welding using a coherent beam of monochromatic light’.[ISO/TR 25901-3:2016-03, Welding and allied processes – Vocabulary – Part 3: Welding processes]
Similar terms: laser metal deposition with wire (LMDW) [DIN 17024], wire laser additive manufacturing (WLAM) [DIN 17024], wire-based laser metal deposition (LMD-w or w-LMD), laser wire-feed metal additive manufacturing (LWAM or LWMAM)
Laser wire deposition means directed energy deposition with the welding consumable wire and the main energy source laser beam. [translated after DIN 17024]
In laser wire deposition, the filler wire is melted with a laser. Our laser welding heads enable your laser processing machine to perform the laser wire deposition process.Overlay welding means ‘surfacing by means of welding’.
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
Overlay welding is the term for the more laminar building up. Overlay welding is one of the options for cladding.Similar term: base material
The parent material means a ‘material to be joined, or surfaced, by welding, braze welding or brazing’.[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
Similar term: run [ISO/TR 25901-1], bead [ISO/TR 25901-1]
The pass means the ‘metal melted or deposited during one passage of an electrode, torch or blowpipe’. ‘The term pass is commonly used in beam welding.’[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
The processing head is the ‘last technical assembly in the beam path from the laser to the processing location in laser material processing’. ‘In the processing head, necessary optical, electrical and mechanical construction elements (e.g. focusing optics, process gas nozzle and distance control) are combined, which can be moved as the last element to the material as a compact device.’
[translated after DIN 32532:2009-08, Schweißen – Laserstrahlverfahren zur Materialbearbeitung – Begriffe für Prozesse und Geräte]
The term processing head is also used in ISO 11553. Our laser welding heads are processing heads for a laser processing machine. A processing head is an interchangeable equipment.The protective exposure limit means the ‘maximum laser exposure of the front surface of a laser guard which prevents laser radiation accessible at its rear surface from exceeding the Class 1 AEL for the determined passive or active guard detection time’.
[IEC 60825-4:2022-07, Safety of laser products — Part 4: Laser guards]Rapid prototyping is the ‘application of additive manufacturing intended for reducing the time needed for producing prototypes’. ‘Historically, rapid prototyping (RP) was the first commercially significant application for additive manufacturing and has therefore been commonly used as a general term for this type of technology.’
[ISO/ASTM 52900:2021, Additive manufacturing — General principles — Fundamentals and vocabulary]Similar term: inert gas
The shielding gas means a ‘protective gas used to prevent or reduce atmospheric contamination’.[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
We recommend the shielding gas argon for our laser welding process. This is also an inert gas and thus prevents reactions. The shielding gas is applied to our laser welding heads either via the shielding gas nozzle or our shielding gas chamber product.Surfacing means the ‘deposition of material on a surface to obtain desired properties and/or dimensions’.
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
We do surfacing with metal. The result of our surfacing is cladding. The process of our surfacing is overlay welding.The weld means the ‘result of welding’. ‘The weld includes the weld metal and the heat-affected zone.’
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
The weld consists of the melted wire material, the melted workpiece material and the heat-affected zone in the workpiece. The heat-affected zone of our weld is very small due to the laser.Welding means a ‘joining process in which two or more parts are united producing a continuity in the nature of the workpiece material(s) by means of heat or pressure or both, and with or without the use of filler material’. ‘Welding processes may be used also for surfacing and remelting.’
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
We weld with a laser. This has the advantage that a small heat-affected zone is created during welding.A welding consumable means a ‘material consumed in the making of a weld’. ‘The term includes filler material and auxiliary material.’
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
Our welding consumable is the filler material filler wire.A welding equipment means an ‘individual apparatus used in welding’. ‘EXAMPLE Power source, wire feeder, etc.’
[ISO/TR 25901-1:2016-03, Welding and allied processes — Vocabulary — Part 1: General terms]
We are a manufacturer of laser welding heads and thus offer interchangeable welding equipment for laser processing machines. Our shielding gas chamber is not formally welding equipment, but a separate machinery component that nevertheless supports the welding process.