Israeli firm Civan Lasers has claimed the €5,000 Innovation Prize for its Dynamic Beam Laser (DBL) technology at this year’s Innovation Awards, held on the opening night of the Laser World of Photonics, currently underway in Munich, Germany.
The Innovation Awards, now in their third year, celebrate the most innovative products and technologies emerging from the photonics industry.
The winning technology, chosen by an expert panel of judges from 18 finalists and over 50 original entries, also won the category under which it was submitted: Laser systems for industrial production engineering.
At 100kW, the DBL is, according to Civan Lasers, the most powerful single-mode laser developed to date. The laser is designed to offer a more efficient and cost-effective approach to welding, especially in applications requiring the joining of thick sections (25-70mm at atmospheric pressure), such as the production of ships, wind turbines, and oil and gas pipes. The technology could also provide a solution to the numerous welding challenges associated with hydrogen fuel cell production.
The laser uses a method called coherent beam combining, where numerous beams of differing phase are overlapped to produce a wide range of beam shapes at up to megahertz frequencies in real time without the need for moving parts. This enables a single DBL machine to have a welding capacity equivalent to ten times that of other one-pass welding systems, according to Civan Lasers.
It eliminates the need for vacuum furnaces and reduces the time and cost associated with multi-pass welding methods.
According to Civan lasers, the economics of the laser are clear. Welding at feed rate of 10-40mm/sec with only one pass can reduce the total welding time, leading to a welding cost reduction of approximately 30 times. Furthermore, one DBL laser machine can weld with a capacity of x10 other systems, making it attractive for companies that require deep penetration welding.
"In 2019 we were nominated for our 14kW Dynamic Beam Laser, and just a few years later we are now winning the award for our 100kW laser system, so we can only imagine what the future will bring," commented Ami Spira, Marketing Manager at Civan Lasers.
More information on this revolutionary technology can be found here and here.
Also shortlisted in the Laser systems for industrial production engineering category were Scanlab's 'SCANMotionControl' system, as well as Fusion Bionic's 'Core' technology.