Kiev, Ukraine – In late May, the 5th Jubilee International Conference on Laser Technologies in Welding and Materials Processing (LTWMP-2011) took place at Katsively, Crimea, Ukraine. Presentations included those devoted to the 50th anniversary of the beginning of laser technology, the latest achievements in laser technology, case studies, and market progress.
This biennial conference was organized by the Paton Welding Institute (PWI) and the Laser Technology Research Institute (LTRI) of the National Technical University (NTUU), in cooperation with Zhejiang University of Technology (China), International Association Welding, and other professional institutions.
This year the consequences of the global economic crises continued to affect many countries, which was reflected in the quantity of countries represented. at the event. This year, experts from only 7 countries attended (Germany, China, India, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and the US).
Conference Chairmen were Prof. Borys Paton (Director of PWI of NASU) and Prof. Volodymyr Kovalenko (Director of LTRI of NTUU) and the head of Organizing Committee was Dr. Alexander Zelnichenko (PWI). At the opening, participants paid tribute to Prof. Vladimir S. Golubev, a (Moscow, Russia) member of the Program Committee, well known scientist, expert in the theory of laser radiation interaction with matter, and one of the founders of laser technology in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) who passed away a few months before the Conference started.
The main plenary presentation at LTWMP-2011 Conference was devoted to the 50th anniversary of the beginning of laser technology in a report by Prof. Volodymyr Kovalenko – "Towards the Fiftieth Anniversary of Laser Technology Development," who praised: Dr. Theodor Maiman, Dr. Gordon Gould, Prof. Nikolay Basov, Prof. Alex Prokhorov, Prof. Charles Towns, Dr. Arthur Shawlow, and many others.
The consolidating role of institutions such as the: LIA (Laser Institute of America), ELI (European Laser Institute), CIRP (International Academy for Production Engineering), LAS (Laser Association of the FSU), and others as well as publishers of journals like: Industrial Laser Solutions, Journal of Laser Applications, Photonics, and others have been highly appreciated. The latest achievements in laser technology developed over the five decades were presented and market progress was analyzed.
In another plenary paper, Prof. Jianhua Yao, Director of the Center for Laser Technology and Engineering at Zhenjiang University of Technology, presented the results of joint research with LTRI of Kiev Polytechnic Institute in the field of laser remanufacturing components. In China, laser technology is considered a high priority key technology, and collaborations are encouraged. Three papers on results of such collaborations on laser cladding, and welding were also presented.
In the conference program, papers were presented on laser welding, laser cutting, cladding, laser hardening, coating, 3-D components forming, hybrid and combined technologies, lasers in medicine and biology, other high energy source technologies, simulation of the processes and design of equipment.
At the Paton welding Institute, Prof. Krivtsun’s group has studied theoretical and experimental aspects of laser+plasma interaction with matters in different working conditions to find the optimal one for high quality and low cost processing. Dr. Shelyagin, with his colleagues at PWI, demonstrated the peculiarities of layers obtained by laser alloying at metal surfaces. Dr. Gumenyuk (BAM Federal Institute of Materials Research and Testing, Berlin) and Dr. Mirgorodsky, Efremov (Research Institute of Electrophysical Apparatus, St. Petersburg), presented papers on application of high power fiber lasers for products manufacturing. Processing with another high-beam technology – electron beam – was discussed by Dr. Abdurakhmanov (RWTH Aachen University). Prof. Mayorov’s (Institute of laser and Information Technologies, Shatura, Russia) presented a paper on industrial laser applications at the ZIL automotive plant in Moscow.
In the area of simulation, some modernized approaches were the subject of Prof. Rao’s paper, "Parametric Optimization of Laser Beam Machining Process using Hybrid ABC-SA Algorithm" (Surdar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat, India), which initiated active discussion among the experts.
Altogether, 28 plenary papers were presented during six sessions and 24 poster papers at two sessions.
In spite of the financial problems, a large group of young researchers (students and postgraduate students) participated in the Conference with poster and even plenary presentations (Bauman Moscow State Technical University, St. Petersburg State Polytechnic University, Tver State Technical University, etc. from Russia; NTUU "KPI", PWI from Ukraine; Surdar National University of Technology, India, and others).
The papers presented from experts in different institutions from participating countries and the discussions that took place at the conference vividly proved that for the last five decades laser development and industrial laser applications have produced unique achievements, and laser technology developments are far from saturation. The future is bright, and new prospects are expected in the future.
This summary was prepared by Prof. Volodymyr Kovalenko ([email protected]) exclusively for Industrial Laser Solutions. The planned publishing date of the Proceedings of the Conference is November.