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Electron beam welding generally occurs in a vacuum, and the size of the vacuum chamber can limit the size and amount of parts that can be welded. Further, creating the vacuum in the chamber requires pumping, and depending on the size of the chamber, that can take a long period of time. After the vacuum has been established and the parts welded, the chamber is then brought back to normal pressure, which again adds time to the process. The weld “head” in an electron beam welder is usually fixed, and the parts to be welded have to be maneuvered into position under the beam. Due to the vacuum needed and the physical danger presented by an electron beam – it emits X-rays – an operator cannot be in direct contact with the parts. Hence, parts must be moved remotely, either through manual controls or CNC, during the welding cycle. Depending on the design of the part and the complexity of the welds involved, electron beam welding can range from very expensive to very cost effective. There are no downsides to the quality of an electron beam weld, however.
EB Industry’s electron beam welding service focuses on welding to industry specifications. There are three standards we apply most often to our Electron Beam welding work, all of them originally created specifically for applications where exceptional weld quality is an absolute necessity and weld failure is not an option: AMS 2681 (Welding, Electron Beam), AMS 2680 (Electron Beam Welding for Fatigue Critical Applications) and AWS D17.1 (Specification for Fusion Welding for Aerospace Applications). While AWS standards are excellent for process assurance, EB Industries’ AS9100 certification ensures these standards are consistently applied.
Generally electron beam welders require a physically large, extremely high voltage power supply and a vacuum chamber, which makes the equipment very heavy and basically unmovable. There are partial vacuum electron beam welding machines that do not require a chamber, and there are no vacuum electron beam welders, but the resultant weld does not have the outstanding characteristics of a weld made by an electron beam welding in full vacuum.