Research Projects

The proposal aims to address the technological challenges in cost-effective retrofitting of an industrial welding robot with arrangements for laser-based deposition for repairing components. A continuous wave Yb fibre laser with a minimum 350 W power and good beam quality has been developed at CsIR-CGCRI. A low-weight laser cladding head with a beam focusing lens, protective glass window, inert gas shielding, metal powder mixing, and a suitable nozzle will be developed at CsIR-CMERI. A gravity-based or fluidized-bed powder feeder unit with two hoppers will be procured and integrated with the developed laser cladding head. These components will be retrofitted to a 6-axes IRB 1410 industrial welding robot with a 5 kg payload capacity. Experiments of single-layer and multi-layer laser cladding of AIsI 316L powder will be carried out to assess the process capability. The developed set up will be demonstrated in refurbishing a few worn out industrial parts. The worn volume will be scanned with a 3D scanner, generating CAD models in sTL format. Open source software like slice3R will be used to generate slicing and tool path generation. Laser power and powder flow rate will be controlled separately from the respective sources.