Compared with conventional welding, laser spot welding offers a unique combination of high speed, precision and low heat distortion. This combination of advantages is attractive for manufacturing industries including automotive and electronics companies. In this paper, a real time monitoring scheme for a pulsed Nd:YAG laser spot welding was suggested. Acoustic emission (AE) signals were collected during welding and analyzed for given process conditions such as laser power and pulse duration. A back propagation artificial neural network, with AE frequency content inputs, was used to predict the weldability of stainless steel sheets.
