Laser welding of different pure copper materials under consideration of shielding gas influence and impact on quality relevant surface topographical features

The high demand for electronic products increases the need for high-quality welds of copper. Laser welding can be applied but may result in undesired weld characteristics such as humping or spatter. Process control is needed to identify defective welds in the production line. Surface topographical features can be used to identify different weld characteristics by optical coherence tomography (OCT). The resulting surface topography of a weld can be influenced by process parameters like its material properties or the application of process gas. In this work, we investigate the influence of different pure copper materials and process gas on weld seam surface features for the classification of quality-relevant weld characteristics. First, the resulting changes in weld depth and metallographic cross sections are qualitatively and quantitively characterized for different pure copper materials under the consideration of weld categories such as melt ejection, deep penetration welding, humping, and heat conduction welding with and without the application of shielding gas. Afterward, a qualitative and quantitative analysis of weld surface features is performed for the beforementioned categories under consideration of the copper material and shielding gas. As a result, an influence on the achievable weld depth could be identified for pure copper with residual phosphor content. No significant changes in surface topographical features could be identified for different material properties of copper. The influence of shielding gas and pure copper material is found to be negligible on surface topographical characteristics for process control.