Crimea, Ukraine - Experts from 19 countries in the field of laser technology presented results of their research at the 2nd International Laser Technologies in Welding and Materials Processing (LTWMP) conference here May 23-27. The conference was organized by the Paton Welding Institute (PWI) and the Laser Technology Research Institute (LTRI) of the National Technical University of Ukraine.
Speaking to the widespread acceptance of lasers in industrial applications, Prof. V. Kovalenko summarized them in his presentation “Laser technology: from macro to nano.” In one of the plenary reports Prof. H. Man (Hong Kong Polytechnical University) discussed opportunities for laser coating of porous NiTi on special alloys having shape memory that are being considered for use in surgery.
Among session papers drawing great attention was one from the Bremen Institute of Beam Technologies (BIAS) on programmed laser shaping of a sheet material and one by PWI (Ukraine) on hybrid laser-plasma coating. Hybrid laser welding was also reported by BIAS, PWI (Ukraine), the Laser Centre (Belgium), and others.
The study of laser radiation for sintering diamond composites for diamond cutting tools was considered by LTRI and the Institute of Super Hard Materials (Ukraine). Experts from Argonne National Laboratory (U.S.) and Technion (Israel) studied tribology properties of metal surfaces subjected to laser texturing. The final conference report, “Use of Web-technologies to increase the efficiency of operation of the laser industrial equipment” (LTRI, Ukraine and National Technical University of Athens), described virtual enterprise using information systems and the Internet.
The success of the conference is shown by the scheduling of the 3rd International conference LTWMP-07 in 2007. The complete 2005 conference proceedings will be issued in English by early November. - V. S. Kovalenko