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Lasers can be used for seam butt and overlap welding of nearly all metal used in medical device technology, like stainless steel, gold, platinum or shape memory alloys and especially titanium resp. titanium alloys. With this material used abundantly in this industrial sector, traditional processing methods come up against their limitations.

Commercially pure titanium and most of titanium alloys can be welded by procedures and equipment used in welding austenitic stainless steel and aluminum. Because of the high reactivity of titanium and titanium alloys at temperatures above 550°C, additional precautions must be applied to shield the weldment from contact with air. Also, titanium base metal and filler metal must be clean to avoid contamination during welding.

Heat treating in its broadest sense, refers to any of the heating and cooling operations are performed for the purpose of changing the mechanical properties, the metallurgical structure, or the residual stress state of a metal product.

When the term is applied to aluminum alloys, however, its use frequently is restricted to the specific operations employed to increase strength and hardness of the precipitation-hardenable wrought and cast alloys. These usually are referred to as the "heat-treatable" alloys to distinguish them from those alloys in which no significant strengthening can be achieved by heating and cooling. The latter, generally referred to as "non heat-treatable" alloys depend primarily on cold work to increase strength. Heating to decrease strength and increase ductility (annealing) is used with alloys of both types; metallurgical reactions may vary with type of alloy and with degree of softening desired.