TY - JOUR A1 - Bachmann, Marcel A1 - Artinov, Antoni A1 - Meng, Xiangmeng A1 - Putra, Stephen Nugraha A1 - Rethmeier, Michael T1 - Challenges in dynamic heat source modeling in high-power laser beam welding JF - Journal of Laser Applications N2 - The amount of absorbed energy in the keyhole as well as its spatial and temporal distribution is essential to model the laser beam welding process. The recoil pressure, which develops because of the evaporation process induced by the absorbed laser energy at the keyhole wall, is a key determining factor for the macroscopic flow of the molten metal in the weld pool during high-power laser beam welding. Consequently, a realistic implementation of the effect of laser radiation on the weld metal is crucial to obtain reliable and accurate simulation results. In this paper, we discuss manyfold different improvements on the laser-material interaction, namely, the ray tracing method, in the numerical simulation of the laser beam welding process. The first improvement relates to locating the exact reflection points in the ray tracing method using a so-called cosine condition in the determination algorithm for the intersection of reflected rays and the keyhole surface. A second correction refers to the numerical treatment of the Gaussian distribution of the laser beam, whose beam width is defined by a decay of the laser intensity by a factor of 1/e2, thus ignoring around 14% of the total laser beam energy. In the third step, the changes in the laser radiation distribution in the vertical direction were adapted by using different approximations for the converging and the diverging regions of the laser beam, thus mimicking the beam caustic. Finally, a virtual mesh refinement was adopted in the ray tracing routine. The obtained numerical results were validated with experimental measurements. KW - Laser beam welding KW - Laser energy distribution KW - Ray tracing KW - Numerical modeling PY - 2023 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-584748 DO - https://doi.org/10.2351/7.0001079 VL - 35 IS - 4 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Laser Institute of America AN - OPUS4-58474 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Artinov, Antoni A1 - Meng, Xiangmeng A1 - Bachmann, Marcel A1 - Rethmeier, Michael T1 - Study on the transition behavior of the bulging effect during deep penetration laser beam welding JF - International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer N2 - The present work is devoted to the study of the transition behavior of the recently confirmed widening of the weld pool, known as the bulging effect, during high-power deep penetration laser beam welding of thick unalloyed steel sheets. A three-dimensional transient multi-physics numerical model is developed, allowing for the prediction of the bulge formation and the study of its temporal behavior. The model is generalized to account automatically for the transition from partial to complete penetration. Several experimental measurements and observations, such as drilling period, weld pool length, temperature, efficiency, and metallographic cross-sections are used to verify the model and assure the plausibility of the numerical results. The analysis of the calculated temperature and velocity distributions, as well as the evolution of the keyhole geometry, shows that the formation of a bulging region strongly depends on the penetration depth of the weld. Based on the numerical results, the bulge is found to occur transiently, having its transition from a slight bulge to a fully developed bulging between penetration depths of 6 mm and 9 mm, respectively. KW - Laser beam welding KW - Deep penetration KW - Bulge formation KW - Numerical modeling PY - 2022 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-545067 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2021.122171 VL - 184 SP - 122171 PB - Elsevier Ltd. AN - OPUS4-54506 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Artinov, Antoni A1 - Meng, Xiangmeng A1 - Bachmann, Marcel A1 - Rethmeier, Michael T1 - Numerical analysis of the partial penetration high power laser beam welding of thick sheets at high process speeds JF - Metals N2 - The present work is devoted to the numerical analysis of the high-power laser beam welding of thick sheets at different welding speeds. A three-dimensional transient multi-physics numerical model is developed, allowing for the prediction of the keyhole geometry and the final penetration depth. Two ray tracing algorithms are implemented and compared, namely a standard ray tracing approach and an approach using a virtual mesh refinement for a more accurate calculation of the reflection points. Both algorithms are found to provide sufficient accuracy for the prediction of the keyhole depth during laser beam welding with process speeds of up to 1.5 m/min. However, with the standard algorithm, the penetration depth is underestimated by the model for a process speed of 2.5 m/min due to a trapping effect of the laser energy in the top region. In contrast, the virtually refined ray tracing approach results in high accuracy results for process speeds of both 1.5 m/min and 2.5 m/min. A detailed study on the trapping effect is provided, accompanied by a benchmark including a predefined keyhole geometry with typical characteristics for the high-power laser beam welding of thick plates at high process speed, such as deep keyhole, inclined front keyhole wall, and a hump. KW - High-power laser beam welding KW - High process speeds KW - Deep penetration KW - Numerical modeling KW - Ray tracing PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-532170 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/met11081319 SN - 2075-4701 VL - 11 IS - 8 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - MDPI CY - Basel AN - OPUS4-53217 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -