Patent ID: 8138447

Claim:
A laser-arc hybrid welding head for welding a base material with laser welding and arc welding, the laser-arc hybrid welding head comprising: an arc electrode for generating an arc between the arc electrode and the base material; an optical fiber for transmitting laser light used in laser welding, the optical fiber being disposed such that the laser light transmitted by the optical fiber has an optical axis that crosses an axis of the arc electrode at a predetermined angle; a collimating optical system for rendering the laser light from the optical fiber parallel and outputting the parallel laser light; a first reflecting mirror for reflecting a part of the parallel laser light, from the collimating optical system, at the predetermined angle with respect to an optical axis of the parallel laser light, thereby splitting the parallel laser light into a first split laser light as the reflected part of the parallel laser light and a second split laser light as a part of the parallel laser light that has not been reflected by the first reflecting mirror; a second reflecting mirror for reflecting the second split laser light, which has not been reflected by the first reflecting mirror, at the predetermined angle with respect to the optical axis of the parallel laser light such that a space is formed between the first split laser light and the second split laser light; and a focusing optical system for focusing the first split laser light, which has been reflected by the first reflecting mirror, and the second split laser light, which has been reflected by the second reflecting mirror, on the base material, wherein the arc electrode is disposed in the space to be closer to the base material than to the focusing optical system.