Abstract: Processing is performed to make a user to certainly read information, e.g., a document, to be read by the user. In the processing, a database of an information management server stores information to be read by the user, an ID identifying the information, and status information identifying whether the information is not yet read by the user. When the user wishes to operate an apparatus in a system, the operation of the apparatus is restricted if the information to be read by the user is unread. If the information to be read by the user is already read, the operation of the apparatus is permitted.

Abstract: A print processing device comprises: a storage to store an input print job including image data of plural pages; a print processor to perform printing to plural papers based on the image data of the plural pages; an image reader to acquire the image data for each page of the plural printed papers; a determiner to determine whether a print state for each page is good or bad, by comparing the acquired image data for each page with stored corresponding image data; and a controller to control, if the print state for a specific page is bad, the print processor to perform reprinting based on the image data of the specific page and the image reader to stand by for reading of a subsequent page until the reprinting ends, thereby enabling to easily replace, in the reprinting for a page of bad print state, this page with the reprinted page.

Abstract: Processing is performed to make a user to certainly read information, e.g., a document, to be read by the user. In the processing, a database of an information management server stores information to be read by the user, an ID identifying the information, and status information identifying whether the information is not yet read by the user. When the user wishes to operate an apparatus in a system, the operation of the apparatus is restricted if the information to be read by the user is unread. If the information to be read by the user is already read, the operation of the apparatus is permitted.

Abstract: In order to make the depth of penetration in the weld bead portion uniform and obtain a bead shape having a flat bottom without spiking and meltdown during continuous hot rolling by bonding a plurality of hot-rolled steel materials using a laser beam, the following methods are employed: (A) a method of butt welding wherein center gas is blown against the welding portion symmetrically to the optical axis of the laser beam while side gas is being blown thereagainst from the side, the method comprising conducting welding while the center of laser-induced plasma is shifted in the welding direction from the center of the laser beam by a distance 0.2 to 0.

Abstract: In order to make the depth of penetration in the weld bead portion uniform and obtain a bead shape having a flat bottom without spiking and meltdown during continuous hot rolling by bonding a plurality of hot-rolled steel materials using a laser beam, the following methods are employed: (A) a method of butt welding wherein center gas is blown against the welding portion symmetrically to the optical axis of the laser beam while side gas is being blown thereagainst from the side, the method comprising conducting welding while the center of laser-induced plasma is shifted in the welding direction from the center of the laser beam by a distance 0.2 to 0.

Abstract: A grain-oriented electrical steel sheet with improved magnetic properties is achieved by a reduced 180° C. magnetic wall spacing with pulse laser light irradiation. The rolling direction width of the periodic closure domain generated by laser irradiation is no greater than 150 &mgr;m. The depth of the periodic closure domain in the direction of the steel sheet thickness is at least 30 &mgr;m. The product of the length of the periodic closure domain in the rolling direction width direction multiplied by the length of the depth of the periodic closure domain in the direction of the steel sheet thickness is at least 4500 &mgr;m2. The magnetostriction with materials of 0.23 mm sheet thickness (&lgr;19 p-p compression) is no greater than 0.9×10−6, and magnetostriction with materials of 0.27 mm sheet thickness (&lgr;19 p-p compression) is no greater than 1.3×10−6.

Abstract: A continuous hot rolling method including the steps of: cutting the tail portion of a preceding material in a steel product and the front portion of a succeeding material in the steel product to form butt faces; previously determining the thickness of scale created on the butt faces to determine the proportion of the weight of the scale; calculating the amount of oxygen dissolved in a weld molten zone, determining a deoxidation capacity of a deoxidizer for deoxidizing the above amount of oxygen; allowing the butt faces to abut against each other to form a butt area; applying a laser beam to the butt area to form a weld molten zone; incorporating the deoxidizer having the above deoxidation capacity into the weld molten zone; and hot rolling the molten joined steel product.

Abstract: Sheet bars are effectively joined while they are traveling and subjected to continuous hot rolling without causing defects in quality and without requiring large expensive apparatus such as a swing roller etc.The present invention is to provide a continuous hot rolling method and apparatus in which the tail of a preceding sheet bar is butted to the top of a succeeding sheet bar between the rough and finishing mills on a continuous hot rolling line, and the butted portion is welded from the upper surface of the sheet bars by means of laser beam or plasma arc while the sheet bars are traveling.According to the present invention, it is possible to join sheet bars from the upper surface in a short period of time without stopping the sheet bars and without causing splashes and burrs, before the sheet bars are subjected to continuous finish rolling.

Abstract: In order to obtain a high-power laser beam with a high beam quality with use of a small-sized and low-cost apparatus, there has been disclosed a laser resonator which is constructed so as to produce a single high-order transverse mode laser beam, and a technique for converting the laser beam with a single high-order transverse mode into a laser beam with a high beam quality. The laser resonator is provided with a regulating plate of a high-order transverse mode which is constructed so as to produce a laser beam in a single high-order transverse mode. A phase adjusting plate inverts a phase for each region of the laser beam divided depending upon a lateral mode thereof to match the phase for each region of the laser beam, and subsequently, a traveling direction of the laser beam is changed for each position thereof by means of the first binary optics element, and further, the laser beam is converted into a parallel beam by means of the second binary optical element.

Abstract: Sheet bars are effectively joined while they are traveling and subjected to continuous hot rolling without causing defects in quality and without requiring large expensive apparatus such as a swing roller etc.The present invention is to provide a continuous hot rolling method and apparatus in which the tail of a preceding sheet bar is butted to the top of a succeeding sheet bar between the rough and finishing mills on a continuous hot rolling line, and the butted portion is welded from the upper surface of the sheet bars by means of laser beam or plasma arc while the sheet bars are traveling.According to the present invention, it is possible to join sheet bars from the upper surface in a short period of time without stopping the sheet bars and without causing splashes and burrs, before the sheet bars are subjected to continuous finish rolling.

Abstract: The present invention is a honeycomb panel comprising metal face sheets respectively disposed on upper and lower faces of said honeycomb core characterized in that said honeycomb panel has a metal side plate disposed on at least one side face thereof, for mutually connecting honeycomb panels to each other, and a process for producing a honeycomb panel, said process characterized by comprising the steps of: welding a corrugated honeycomb core at an end face of its corrugation to a side plate along the end face of said corrugation; welding the honeycomb core at top portions of its corrugation to an upper face sheet from the side of the honeycomb core by means of an energy beam; welding bottom portions of the corrugation of the honeycomb core to a lower face sheet from the side of the face sheet by means of an energy beam; and welding the face sheets to the side plate before or after welding the honeycomb core to the face sheets.

Abstract: A cooling drum for use in casting a thin cast strip is rotated about its axis while a laser beam having a wavelength of from 0.30 .mu.m to 1.07 .mu.m is irradiated onto a peripheral surface of the drum to form dimple therein. At this time, at least one of the oscillation period of the laser beam, the laser output and the divergence angle of the beam is controlled to assure that each dimple has a depth of no less than 50 .mu.m and a diameter of less than 500 .mu.m and the distance measured between the centers of each adjacent pair of dimples ranges from 1.05 times to 5 times the dimple diameter.

Abstract: A method of producing a corrugated metal sheeting including a flat metal sheet and a corrugated metal sheet joined to each other, which sheeting is used to produce a carrier or honeycomb structure for carrying catalytic agents used for purifying exhaust gases from, for example, an internal combustion engine of an automobile. In the method, the flat and corrugated metal sheets are brought together so that corrugations of the corrugated metal sheet are successively brought into contact with the flat metal sheet in such a manner that the corrugated metal sheet is freely movable to thereby release resilient stresses therefrom, and a laser beam is incident on a contact line between the flat metal sheet and each of the corrugations of the corrugated metal sheet, to thereby weld them to each other.

Abstract: A laser beam heat treatment for a metal wire has improved incidence and processing conditions so as to achieve efficient surface heat treatment with a circumferentially averaged laser beam flux and with remarkably enhanced fatigue strength in a high speed heat treatment. The method and apparatus is characterized by forming a cone shaped mirror of circular or polygon cross section having a peak angle in a range of 5.degree. to 20.degree. and interior mirror surface, the cone shaped mirror defining an opening having a diameter greater than the diameter of the metal wire in a range of 0.2 to 2 mm, feeding the metal wire having a diameter less than or equal to 1 mm through the cone shaped mirror along the center axis thereof, irradiating a laser beam with an incident angle including an angular deflection with respect to the center axis of the cone shaped mirror in a range of .+-.10.degree. resulting in multiple reflection of the laser beam between the interior mirror surface and the surface of the fed metal wire.

Abstract: A core strip for a honeycomb core panel is composed of a metal strip shaped into a corrugated configuration and having continuous alternate convex and concave portions of identical shape, each of the convex portions being defined by a plateau portion and a pair of inclined portions, and each of the concave portions being defined by a bottom portion and the pair of inclined portions. The inclined portions interconnect the plateau portion and the bottom portion. At the one side edge of the shaped metal strip, the plateau portion and the inclined portions have respective first flanges disposed perpendicular to the metal strip and directed away from a convex surface of the convex portion. At the other side edge of the shaped metal strip, the bottom portion and the inclined portion have respective second flanges disposed perpendicularly to the metal strip and directed away from a convex surface of the concave portion.

Abstract: When the power output of a continuous wave oscillated laser is changed to a pulsed laser by Q-switching, in the conventional method of Q-switching, if the pulse repetition rate is changed, the condition of oscillated excitation is changed and the pulse waveform or pulse peak power are simultaneously changed; and therefore, a stable dulling process is impracticable.The present invention decreases the cavity loss of a laser oscillator during a pulse off by decreasing power output of the radio-frequency signal applied to the Q-switch, and consequently, controls the pulse waveform to that required for the roll dulling process. In accordance with the method of the invention, the roughness of the dulled roll surface consists of innumerable small craters and is suitable for a high speed fine dulling process.

Abstract: A high-frequency electric resistance welding method combined with the irradiation of a laser beam in which a workpiece is continuously fed and opposed edges of the workpiece are formed into a wedge shape by causing them to converge as they are butted against each other, and the butted edges are melted by heating them with high-frequency resistance heating and a laser beam, to weld the butted edges. The laser beam is projected against the range of over 30% and below 80% of the thickness of the butted edges including the central portion of the thickness to melt the butted edges by the combined heating action of the laser beam and high-frequency current. The corners are heated and melted by means of high-frequency electric resistance heating, so that the butted edges of the workpiece can be melted uniformly through the entire range of thickness.

Abstract: A thin metal strip excellent in both shape and quality is produced by a continuous casting process which comprises the steps of jetting a molten metal through a nozzle onto the surface of a moving chill body maintained at a pertinent temperature range by irradiating a high density energy at a place positioned at the rear of the nozzle, and subjecting the molten metal to quenching so as to effect solidification.

Abstract: Conventional beam-welding methods have disadvantages in that the total energy efficiency is low and that the bonding zone and HAZ spread due to indirect heating of the weld zone. In the present invention, a wedge-shaped space is formed between the non-contact parts of the articles, and an energy beam, such as a laser beam, an ion beam, and a plasma arc, is projected into the wedge-shaped space so as to heat the weld zone or the parts of articles which will later be joined. The controlling apparatus of the present invention controls the power of, for example, a laser beam based on the detecting of travelling speed of sheets and the like.

Abstract: The present invention relates to preparation of insoluble electrodes having few surface defects and long life. The process for the preparation of electrodes comprises coating the surface of an electroconductive, corrosion resisting base metal (1) with at least one member selected from the platinum group metals and applying laser beams having energy density of 1 KW/cm.sup.2 or higher to the coated surface at a laser energy of 10 Kjoule/cm.sup.2 or less, thereby improving said surface due to its rapid heat treatment.