Lasers in Manufacturing Conference 2015 3D-capable Coaxial Laser Brazing Head Alexander Gatej a, *, Markus Kogel-Hollacher a,b , David Blázquez-Sánchez a , Andreas Bobrowski a , Andreas Niete a , Nicholas Blundell c , Kevin Withers c a Precitec GmbH & Co. KG, Draisstrasse 1, D-76571 Gaggenau, Germany b Precitec Optronik GmbH, Schleussnerstraße 54, D-63263 Neu-Isenburg, Germany c The Manufacturing Technology Centre, Ansty Park, Coventry CV7 9JU, United Kingdom * a.gatej@precitec.de; phone +49 7225 684-349; fax +49 7225 684-900 ABSTRACT Laser processing heads for brazing applications still operate with lateral wire feed suffering from two major disadvantages: the reorientation and the low joint strength. The head’s reorientation becomes very complex if small radii are to be processed. Moreover, the joint strength is limited due to shadowing effects of the laser beam by the filler wire. Thus, the preheating of the wire and the base material are inhomogeneous and lead to a reduced wetting ability and thus to reduced strength of the joint. In order to overcome these limitations, the optical system design, which is developed for diode and solid- state laser applications, enables the generation of a donut shaped laser intensity distribution with a concentric and obscuration-free wire feed. Thus, it provides a full-3D-processing capability without lateral interference contours. Despite of the current design still operating with an external seam tracking system, the optical design is already prepared for an internal, coaxial tracking. Despite of the design aiming on the brazing industry, applications in the area of aluminum welding or cladding are also conceivable and currently under investigation. Particularly cladding is of great interest, since the 3D-capability is of major value. Keywords: laser brazing, cladding, coaxial wire support, 3D-capability 1. INTRODUCTION The industrial breakthrough of laser beam brazing goes back to 1998, when the Audi TT Coupé and the VW Bora successfully implemented this process into their production lines. In the past two decades, laser beam brazing increasingly found its way into the automotive industry and established as a key process in the car body construction.