Characterisation of laser system power draws in materials processing

Due to their high speed and versatility, laser processing systems are now commonplace in many industrial production lines. However, as the need to reduce environmental impact from the manufacturing industry becomes more urgent, there is the opportunity to evaluate laser processing systems to identify opportunities to improve energy efficiencies and thus reduce their carbon footprint. While other researchers have studied laser processing, the majority of previous work on laser systems has focused on the beam-material interaction, overlooking the whole system viewpoint and the significance of support equipment. In this work a methodical approach is taken to design a set of energy modelling terminologies and develop a structured power metering system for laser systems. A 300 W fibre laser welding system is used to demonstrate the application of the power characterization system by utilizing a purpose-built power meter. The laser is broken down according to sub-system, with each part analysed separately to give acomplete overall power analysis, including all auxiliary units. The results show that the greatest opportunities for efficiency improvements lie in the auxiliary units that support the laser devices as these were responsible for 72.2% of the total power draw with the remainder largely apportioned to electrical supply inefficiencies. The laser device drew just 3.5% of the system power at the beam power levels studied. The implications of these results on laser processing system design are then discussed as is the suitability of the characterization process for use by industry on a range of specific laser processing systems.