Welding & Joining of Plastics: Ultrasonic, Laser, Vibration, Hot-Plate

The industrial welding processes and their joint design: ultrasonic energy directors, laser transmission, vibration and hot-plate welding, with weld-line quality, leak integrity, and process windows per process.

Private cohorts & on-site
Format: 2-day (8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.)
Level: Intermediate
Location: Scheduled on demand · on-site at your facility or a regional venue
Date(s): Not yet scheduled for open enrollment. Get notified when it is, or book it privately for your team.
Includes: Certificate of Completion · printed slide binder · take-home reference text

Get notified when this course is scheduled

One email when dates are set. Or skip the wait: run it as a private cohort, on-site at your plant.

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Faculty

Faculty details for this seminar will be announced with the full schedule.

Fees

Early: $1,895 (payment 4+ weeks ahead)
Standard: $2,095 (check/ACH) · $2,165 (card)

Group discount: $200 off per attendee for 3+ from the same organization.

Also Available

  • Corporate on-site delivery at your facility
  • Private cohort sessions
  • Digital curriculum licensing

Seminar Overview

Welding is the structural joining method for connectors, medical housings, fluid systems, and under-hood electronics — and it is the most under-designed joint in the industry. This seminar teaches the four industrial polymer welding processes from the joint-designer's seat: ultrasonic (energy director and shear joints, near/far field, weld depth/pressure/time control), vibration, hot-plate, and laser transmission, each with its joint geometry rules, process window, and failure signatures.

You design joints in class: energy-director geometry per material and wall thickness, shear-joint interference and flash traps, laser-joint optical requirements (clearance, absorber, surface finish), and the leak-integrity requirements that medical and fluid connectors impose. Hermeticity, weld-bead knockdown at weld lines, and the QA question — how do you prove a weld is good without destroying it — get dedicated treatment.

Every concept is grounded in the supplier welding-guide corpus (DuPont, BASF, Branson-class process literature) already in the ETS knowledge base, plus documented failure cases: the welded housing that leaked at thermal cycle, the ultrasonic weld that shattered from embrittlement, the laser joint that looked perfect and held nothing.

Ideal Learner

  • Design engineers specifying welded plastic assemblies
  • Process engineers launching ultrasonic/laser/vibration welding
  • Quality engineers defining weld acceptance criteria
  • Medical and fluid-system engineers with hermetic requirements

Learning Objectives

  • Choose the right welding process per geometry, material, and volume
  • Design energy-director, shear, and laser-transmission joints correctly
  • Set process windows (depth/pressure/time) and read the process signatures
  • Specify weld acceptance: visual, dimensional, and hermeticity methods
  • Diagnose weld failures: brittle welds, flash traps, leak paths

Consulting Sessions

Seminar attendees can sign up for individual consulting sessions with the instructor. Sessions are free for registered attendees, first-come first-served — sign up when registering by calling 248-539-0473 or during the seminar.

Seminar Outline

  • The four processes and where each wins
  • Material weldability: amorphous vs. semi-crystalline, moisture, fillers
  • Joint-design first principles: collapse distance, interference, flash control
  • Energy director geometry per material and wall
  • Near vs. far field: horn reach and part size limits
  • Shear joints for hermetic service
  • Process setup: trigger force, weld force, amplitude, time/depth/energy modes
  • Vibration: joint motion, flash traps, large-part strategy
  • Hot-plate: melt depth control, stuck-on-hot-plate failure
  • Laser transmission: optical stack, absorber strategy, clearance
  • Hybrid and spin welding quick tour
  • Hermeticity: leak-rate requirements and test methods
  • Weld-line knockdown where the joint crosses a flow line
  • Destructive vs. non-destructive acceptance: what NDT can and can't see
  • Process validation for welded joints (medical lens)
  • Case files: the housing that leaked at thermal cycle
  • Brittle welds: moisture, regrind, weld-line interaction
  • Field teardown practice: reading the weld
  • Design-review checklist you keep

More in Track C — Design, Molding & Tooling

Full Course Catalog