better understand electron beam welding and its capabilities
High power EB systems for welding and drilling are used in the Aerospace, Automotive, Semiconductor, Defense, Medical, Nuclear, Oil and Gas, Power Generation & a variety of other industries.
Electron Beam technologies touch our lives in ways that few people realize. Electron Beam lithography is used to manufacture the semiconductor devices we use every day. Electron microscopes produce the high magnification images that have advanced science. Electron Beams are even being used to cure the ink printed on packaging materials and sterilize medical devices. Electron beams produced the pictures on tube type televisions.
Today’s aircraft have components that were manufactured using EB Welding. Around the world, automobiles on the road have components that were manufactured using EB Welding. The fiberglass that insulates homes was produced on machines with precision electron beam drilled holes. PTR and its affiliate companies in the Global Beam Technologies Group manufacture these electron beam welding and drilling systems.
Electron Beam Welding is chosen as the method of joining components for several important reasons.
The most important being; higher beam energy density, welding with a deflection pattern, no significant beam reflectivity from any metal surface, and closed loop power control from low to high powers. These unique capabilities give EB Welding many advantages making it one of the best controlled, most robust welding processes which produces the highest quality welds.
Material Weldability
Aluminum, Cobalt, Copper, Dissimilar Metals, Magnesium, Nickel, Refractory Metals, Steel, Titanium, Zirconium and many more.
The aerospace industry heavily depends upon electron beam welding as a key manufacturing technology. EB Welded components are used in aircraft & rocket engines, sensors, gears, actuators and air frames. Developed and refined over decades, the electron beam welding process consistently delivers the superior results required for manufacture or repair of components used in commercial and military aerospace.
High value components, critical to the functionality of complex power generating systems, are preferably welded with an electron beam. Applications range from single pass, deep section welds in large diaphragms to shallow welds that enable intricate, 3-dimensional nozzle designs. The flexibility of the electron beam process allows welding with or without filler material. If filler is not used, the basic material properties, like corrosion and wear resistance, do not change.
The Electron Beam Welding process is used for demanding joining tasks in many low- and high-tech applications within some of the most sophisticated defense systems. The highly repeatable process ensures safe, reliable performance for short and long term operation in a wide variety of extreme conditions. The combined knowledge of PTR's engineering staff is available to contribute ideas based on decades long experience.
The electron beam is used to weld a multitude of gear/synchronizer, clutch/shaft and planet carrier components for manual and automatic transmissions as well as torque converters and impellers/shaft assemblies for turbochargers. Mass production Electron Beam welders are characterized by short cycle times and either manual or automatic part loading/unloading.
Maintaining the strength and corrosion resistance of weld joints exposed to aggressive environments is a requirement in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries. The lowest possible failure rates demand welding solutions that can produce the highest quality joints. High pressures and high stresses in a corrosive environment are typical operating conditions for parts used in this industry. The flexibility of the Electron Beam Welding process can produce custom tailored joints with small heat affected zones and minimal heat affects to the parent material.
One of the advantages of the electron beam welding process lies in its robustness to join materials like aluminum, copper or stainless steels, which are commonly used in semiconductor fabricating equipment and electronic packaging. The process can be optimized to the specific task by tailoring the shapes of the welds - shallow for sealing purposes to deep and narrow to butt welding of heavy cross sections even in aluminum.
Many medical devices are preferably welded with an electron beam because of the precise nature of the process and the autogenous welding. This ensures that the biocompatibility of selected materials is not changed while welding and they are better tolerated in the body. As a production tool, Electron Beam Welding encompasses a range of applications from single-piece production for custom components to mass produced and off the shelf biomedical products.
For components used in Research and Development, Electron Beam Welding is used whenever the highest quality welds are required. The ability and flexibility of the process to precisely tailor welds is unique, allowing the researcher to optimize the design of any scientific component. PTR's engineering staff has worked to develop weld processes used in many research and development fields and is available to contribute ideas based on decade's long experience with this process.
