2021 is the first year of the "14th Five Year Plan", with high-end manufacturing on the agenda. In addition to the outbreak of the epidemic, a large number of overseas orders have been transferred to China, creating opportunities for high-end manufacturing transformation in China. Under the advocacy of promoting industrial development with high efficiency, energy conservation, and environmental protection, laser welding technology has gradually emerged in high-end applications such as new energy vehicles, aerospace, and orbital ships.
 

According to the "2021 China Laser Industry Development Report", the market size of laser welding in China has reached 11.05 billion yuan in 2020. From 2016 to 2017, driven by the demand for new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, semiconductors, and emerging markets, the market size of laser welding equipment in China experienced an explosive growth, with an increase of over 120%. Despite the impact of macroeconomic downturn and global epidemics in recent years, the overall market size still showed an upward trend, and in 2019, it first exceeded the 10 billion mark. With the need for transformation and upgrading in high-end application fields such as rail transit and shipbuilding, there is an increasing demand for welding medium and large thick plates and steel plates, and the penetration rate of laser welding equipment will accelerate.

High end applications such as shipbuilding may become a new growth point for laser welding

At present, China's laser industry has entered an era of comprehensive application, and the strong market share of mid and low end localization has brought about increasingly serious price wars and homogenization. Higher power, higher accuracy, and higher efficiency have become the common pursuit of the industry, but ultimately bound to the same technical framework. Therefore, exploring the differentiated development of high-end applications has become a new direction for laser enterprises to break through the market.

Throughout the high-end manufacturing field in China, except for the two major markets of automobile manufacturing and power batteries, the overall penetration rate of laser welding in other application fields is still small. Taking the shipbuilding industry as an example, the overall volume of the shipbuilding industry is very large, but due to the particularity of its materials and industry, the current application rate of laser welding is not high.

According to the statistics of DIG Automation Engineering (Wuhan) Co., Ltd., a solution provider for shipbuilding automation production lines, the volume of shipbuilding welding depends on the ship type. Medium and thick plates are mainly located below the deck, while thin plates are mainly superstructure. For example, for luxury cruise ships, welding of 4-12 mm thick steel plates accounts for 80%, and medium thick plates account for 20%; The proportion of bulk carriers is exactly the opposite. However, in the welding process of medium and thick plates, most ship construction still uses traditional welding processes such as submerged arc welding and MIG/MAG welding, with overall efficiency not meeting expectations.

Compared to traditional welding, laser welding has higher efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness, and is easier to automate and intelligently integrate. It is a sharp tool for achieving industrial upgrading, especially suitable for high-end precision manufacturing such as shipbuilding and aerospace. For example, compared to arc welding, laser hybrid welding, as a new welding process, has faster welding speed, less thermal deformation and rework, higher weld quality, less filler consumption, and significantly improves the quality of the finished product.

"Taking panel welding as an example, the speed of submerged arc welding is 550 mm/min, the MIG/MAG can reach 700 mm/min, and the MIG/MAG of double wires can reach about 1500 mm/min, while the welding speed of laser MIG/MAG composite welding can reach 2400 mm/min, which has great advantages in efficiency. Currently, it is the fastest welding process for thin plate welding in shipbuilding."

Welding upgrade in the shipbuilding field, domestic laser becomes the key to breaking the situation

Laser is the core device in laser welding system. From the perspective of industrial development, the domestic laser welding industry lags behind European and American countries, and the main reason is still the core light source. From this perspective, the iterative upgrading of traditional welding processes and the efficient expansion of ship applications have made domestic lasers the key to breaking the situation.

After years of technical research, a large number of excellent laser enterprises have emerged in China to compete with foreign brands, constantly breaking foreign monopolies in the field of core light sources, resulting in an overall decline in laser prices and improving the penetration rate of domestic laser welding equipment in various fields.

In the shipbuilding industry, laser welding is still in the process of preliminary exploration to replace traditional welding. In addition, the market scale of domestic lasers and foreign lasers has not significantly differed, and there is no essential difference in processing effects. There is significant development space for domestic lasers in the shipbuilding field.

Under the overall situation,who will carry the banner of laser welding localization

Laser welding is in urgent need of technological empowerment. Under the overall situation, who can shoulder the banner of localization? The increasing market share of domestic brands has shown us the rise and hope of domestic brands.

Laser welding is different from laser marking and laser cutting. Its biggest feature is customization, and each customer's needs are different. This makes laser welding still in the initial stage of industrial application. However, with the further upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the lightweight development of automobiles, ships, and other high-end manufacturing fields such as aerospace, military industry, there is strong processing demand, and the development space of laser welding technology in high-end application fields is immeasurable.

About HGTECH: HGTECH is the pioneer and leader of laser industrial application in China, and the authoritative provider of global laser processing solutions. We have comprehensively arranged laser intelligent machine, measurement and automation production lines, and smart factory construction to provide overall solutions for intelligent manufacturing.