1. Advantages of high-power fiber laser

At present, the output power of commercial fiber lasers has risen to the order of several kilowatts, even to the order of ten thousand watts. Compared with general lasers, fiber lasers have many unique advantages, such as good beam quality; Small size, light weight, maintenance free; Air cooling, simple and easy to operate; Low operation cost and can be used in industrial environment; Long service life, high machining accuracy and fast speed; The efficiency of electric energy conversion is high, and intelligent, automatic and flexible operation can be realized. Based on the above advantages, its application fields have been extended to laser cutting and laser welding of metal and non-metallic materials in automobile manufacturing, shipbuilding and aviation manufacturing industries.

2. Industrial application of high-power fiber lasers

Recently, the application of fiber laser welding technology in shipbuilding and automobile manufacturing has received considerable attention. In developed countries in Europe and the United States, about 50% - 70% of auto parts use laser processing technology, mainly laser welding and laser cutting. Shanghai Volkswagen and other automobile manufacturers also use laser processing technology to weld body, box and other components. Major large shipyards in Europe, America and Japan have adopted a large number of laser processing technologies. For example, the United States has widely used high-strength, low-alloy steel T-shaped components on the newly built new ships, and the use of laser welding technology has greatly reduced the weight of the ships. In order to meet the needs of ocean flow mechanics, ship plates are designed to have complex three-dimensional curvature shapes. Laser assisted plate forming technology can replace the laborious, time-consuming and dangerous mechanical heating forming process, and has a good application prospect. Japanese shipbuilding enterprises such as Kawasaki heavy industries have installed high-power laser flat cutting systems. Meyer werft in Germany also installed four 12KW CO2 lasers to weld hull stiffeners of different lengths. At present, the United States, Europe and other regions are carrying out the development of high-power fiber laser industrial processing equipment, and the secondary development of industrial fiber laser processing equipment with 2kW and 6kW output. China has developed a series of low-power industrial fiber laser products. Small and medium power laser processing equipment, such as laser marking machine, engraving machine, cutting machine, welding machine, etc., are also widely used in various industries, but the industrial processing application of high-power fiber lasers is still blank, and laser processing technology has not even been used in China's shipbuilding industry.