Thyssen Stahl Ag

Adam Frings

Wilfried Prange

Thomas Stegemann

Process for production of lightweight sheet-steel wheel for vehicles

A shaped member of welded pieces of sheet metal of different thickness, more particularly having a metallic anti-corrosion protection, for example of zinc, on at least one side, wherein the pieces of sheet metal are joined to one another by a laser-beam-butt-welding process and shaped as a unit.

Process for the production of a shaped part from pieces of sheet metal

A process for making a shaped member from sheet metal pieces (37,38) of different thicknesses. In the process flat sheet metal pieces (37,38) are butt welded at their cut edges by laser beam welding. Then the unit, welded together from a number of sheet metal pieces (37,38) of different thickness, are converted into a shaped member by pressing or deep drawing. Since the material of sheet metal pieces (37,38) is not much affected by laser beam welding and the laser-beam-welded joint (39) does not expand much, the joint (39) has no adverse effect on shaping, nor is any anti-corrosion protection, for example, of zinc lost during laser beam welding.

Process for the production of a shaped parts from pieces of sheet metal

A process for the butt-welding of especially deep-drawable steel sheets or steel strips galvanized at least on one side, in which the welding seam is protected against corrosion. To obtain a welding seam flush with the sheet and protected against corrosion, without the reworking of the welding seam and without the use of filler material, sheets or strips having essentially rectangular cut edges with a corrosion in the longitudinal direction of at most 0.4 mm are used. The sheets and strips brought into touch contact with these cut edges are melted in the region of the welding joint by means of a laser beam, of which the focal spot covering the cut edges has a diameter of at most 0.2 mm. Because of the extremely narrow welding gap, the voids are filled by the molten material of the adjacent sheets, without any detectable reduction in the thickness of the sheets or strips. Furthermore, the welding seam is protected against corrosion as a result of the long-range protection effect exerted by the zinc of the adjacent regions.

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Muheim., Germany

Adam Frings