Focal point position control is significant in deep penetration laser beam welding
because it is apt to change during welding due to some fluctuating factors, such as
the non-planar workpiece, welding distortion and thermal focusing. This work
describes the design of a double closed-loop control of the focal point position for
CO2
laser beam welding. A photodiode sensor (PS) and a plasma charge sensor (PCS) are
simultaneously utilized to detect the optical emission and plasma charge current in welding.
It is found that the PCS signal could be used to control the nozzle–workpiece distance
based on the decrease of PCS signal intensity with increasing nozzle–workpiece distance.
The PS signal could be used to control the focal point position by using PS signal variation
with focal point position. Therefore, a system for double closed-loop controlling the focal
point position has been set up, using the PCS signal to control the nozzle–workpiece
distance and the PS signal to control the focal point position. The experimental results
with a non-planar workpiece show that the double closed-loop control of the focal point
position not only automatically follows the contours of the workpiece surface, but also
controls the focal point position constant by compensating the effect of thermal
focusing.