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To increase the competitiveness of jacket substructures compared to monopiles a changeover from an individual towards a serial jacket production based on automated manufactured tubular joints com-bined with standardized pipes has to be achieved. Therefore, this paper addresses fatigue tests of automatical-ly welded tubular X-joints focusing on the location of the technical fatigue crack. For this X-joint, the detect-ed location of the technical crack is then compared to numerical investigations predicting the most fatigue prone notch considering the structural stress approach as well as the notch stress approach. Additionally, the fatigue prone hot spot according to both approaches is compared for a typical offshore jacket double-K-joint to emphasize the significance of the presented outcomes for the existing offshore structures. Besides, the welding process of the automated manufactured tubular X-joints is presented.
To increase the competitiveness of jacket substructures compared to monopiles a changeover from an individual towards a serial jacket production based on automated manufactured tubular joints com-bined with standardized pipes has to be achieved. Therefore, this paper addresses fatigue tests of automatical-ly welded tubular X-joints focusing on the location of the technical fatigue crack. For this X-joint, the detect-ed location of the technical crack is then compared to numerical investigations predicting the most fatigue prone notch considering the structural stress approach as well as the notch stress approach. Additionally, the fatigue prone hot spot according to both approaches is compared for a typical offshore jacket double-K-joint to emphasize the significance of the presented outcomes for the existing offshore structures. Besides, the welding process of the automated manufactured tubular X-joints is presented.
To increase the competitiveness of jacket substructures compared to monopiles a changeover from an individual towards a serial jacket production based on automated manufactured tubular joints combined with standardized pipes has to be achieved. Therefore, this paper addresses fatigue tests of automatically welded tubular X-joints focusing on the location of the technical fatigue crack. The detected location of the technical crack is compared to numerical investigations predicting the most fatigue prone notch considering the structural stress approach as well as the notch stress approach. Besides, the welding process of the automated manufactured tubular X-joints is presented.
To increase the competitiveness of jacket substructures compared to monopiles a changeover from an individual towards a serial jacket production based on automated manufactured tubular joints combined with standardized pipes has to be achieved. Therefore, this paper ad-dresses the welding process of automated manufactured tubular X-joints. Additionally, fatigue tests of the automatically welded tubular joints are presented focusing on the location of the technical fatigue crack. The detected location of the technical crack is compared to numerical investigations predicting the most fatigue prone notch considering the structural stress approach as well as the notch stress approach.
Over the past years economic and environmental considerations have led to a markedly increased demand for efficiency and flexibility in petrochemical plants. The operational temperatures and pressures required today can only be achieved by using new creep-resistant grades of steel. The modified 13CrMoV9-10 vanadium steel shows a good resistance against creep and compressed hydrogen and has been in use for the construction of petrochemical reactors since the mid-1990s. Nevertheless, processing of this type of steel requires extreme care during the welding procedure. This is due to its low toughness and high strength in the welded state when not post weld heat treated combined with increased susceptibility to cracking during stress relaxation. Previous research into crack formation in creep-resistant steels has largely focused on thermal and metallurgical factors; however, little knowledge has been gathered regarding the influence of the welding procedure on crack formation during post weld heat treatment considering real-life manufacturing conditions. The influence of heat control on the mechanical properties has been investigated by simulating the welding and subsequent post weld heat treatment operations during the construction of petrochemical reactors using a special 3-D testing facility on the laboratory scale.
This work is subdivided in two parts. In part I of this study the stresses resulting from preheating, welding, dehydrogenation heat treatment and the final post weld heat treatment were analyzed during experiments under varied heat control. In all experiments stress relief cracks formed during post weld heat treatment could be observed. The total crack lengths correlated with the welding induced stresses.
Part II of this work is dedicated to the characterization of the cracks and the microstructure. The application of a special acoustic emission analysis indicated that the cracks formed in a temperature range between 300 °C and 500 °C during the post weld heat treatment. In comparison to small scale specimens welded without additional shrinkage restraint, the toughness of the restrained welds was significantly decreased. SEM and TEM analyses of all samples revealed accelerated aging due to early precipitation of special carbides during post weld heat treatment under component relevant restraint.
The deep penetration laser beam welding (LBW) has developed to one of the most promising metal joining methods in the modern manufacturing industry. It has well-known advantages of good penetration capacity, low heat input, high reachable welding speed and low welding distortion in comparison to conventional arc welding techniques. However, there are still challenges in LBW making the realization of the advantages difficult, such as porosity or inhomogeneous element distribution when using filler material. The magnetohydrodynamics technique is a promising way to solve these issues by introducing a suitable electromagnetic field, and correspondingly Lorentz force, to control the Transport phenomena in the weld pool.
The underlying physics in wire feed laser beam welding with electromagnetic stirring were investigated numerically and experimentally. A three-dimensional transient heat transfer and fluid flow model coupled with dynamic keyhole, magnetic induction and element transport was developed for the first time. The electromagnetic behaviour as well as the temperature and velocity profiles, solidification parameters, keyhole evolution and element transport are calculated.
The model is well tested against the experimental results. The beneficial effects from electromagnetic stirring (element homogenization and grain refinement) are explained quantitatively using the numerical data and the results from high-speed imaging, OM, EDX and EBSD.
Laser beam welding of aluminum die casting is challenging. A large quantity of gases (in particular hydrogen) is absorbed by aluminum during the die-cast manufacturing process and is contained in the base material in solved or bound form. After re-melting by the laser, the gases are released and are present in the melt as pores. Many of these metallurgic pores remain in the weld seam as a result of the high solidification velocities. The natural (Archimedean) buoyancy is not sufficient to remove the pores from the weld pool leading to process instabilities and poor mechanical properties of the weld. Therefore, an electromagnetic (EM) system is used to apply an additional buoyancy component to the pores. The physical mechanism is based on the generation of Lorentz forces, whereby an electromagnetic pressure is introduced into the weld pool. The EM system exploits the difference in electrical conductivity between poorly conducting pores (inclusions) and the comparatively better conducting aluminum melt to increase the resulting buoyancy velocity of the pores. Within the present study, the electromagnetic supported degassing is investigated in dependence on the laser beam power, welding velocity and electromagnetic flux density. By means of a design of experiments a systematic variation of these parameters is carried out for partial penetration laser beam welding of 6 mm thick sheets of wrought aluminum alloy AlMg3 and die-cast aluminum alloy AlSi12(Fe) where the wrought alloy serves as a reference. The proportion of pores in the weld seams is determined using X-ray images, computed tomography (CT-) images and cross-section images. The results prove a significant reduction of the porosity up to 70 % for both materials as a function of the magnetic flux density
Localized laser surface treatments are able to produce tailor-made surface properties to fulfill requirements of a variety of technical applications. Especially micrometric surface topologies can be beneficial for optimizing tribological contact situations. Structures with lowered surface features are already utilized for bearings or cylinders of combustion engines. There are also other fields of application, where the potential of protruding surface features is known, e. g. for metal forming tools.
A promising approach for a tailored surface treatment working in the microsecond range is the localized dispersing of hard ceramic particles by pulsed laser radiation, the so-called laser implantation. This technique is able to produce micrometric surface structures and to improve simultaneously the wear resistance by creating metal matrix composites.
In this talk, the laser implantation technique is described and compared to the state of the art. The potential to adjust the geometry as well as the mechanical properties of laser implanted surfaces is demonstrated by means of microstructural and topographical investigations of different ceramic materials and steel substrates. Finally, results of research projects are presented aiming on the application of such structured surfaces. Their capability to change and optimize friction and wear are demonstrated for fully lubricated contacts, tools for hot sheet metal forming and tools for cold rolling of sheets for automotive applications.
Force-distance curves have been recorded on thin films of lubricants. The lubricants wet the AFM tip, which causes a capillary force. This force depends on the shape of the tip, as well as on physical properties like viscosity and surface tension, which have been determined additionally with other methods. This way, their influence on the shape of the curves could be analyzed.
At the Stakeholder meeting of the EMPIR project “Multifunctional ultrafast microprobes for on-the-machine measurements”, details about two measurement modes were presented. Force distance curves and contact resonance measurements are compared. The basic principles are explained and exemplary measurements concerning mechanical properties of polymers are shown.
High heat input leads to grain coarsening and softening in WM and HAZ; the tensile strength is reduced. Low heat input leads to inadmissible hardening in the WM; the impact strength is reduced.
The proposed t8/5-time of 3 s to 15 s could be achieved through the reduced welding velocity.
The concept of electromagnetic weld pool support system allowed single-pass welds in flat position without gravity drop-outs even for reduced welding speeds; in this way the heat input can be controlled.
The adaptation of the electromagnetic weld pool support system to laser and laser hybrid welding process can dramatically increase the potential field of application of these technologies for real industrial implementation.
Chemical compositions of the welds have significant effect on weld quality. Current inspection methods for the weld seams employ mostly post factum methods and cannot prevent weld defects.Elemental burn offs may significantly affect solidification leading to embrittlement or cracking. Control of weld chemical compositions insures a controlled solidification and resistance to related weld defects.
An overview of the BAM funed Focus Area Materials Project "AGIL" will be presented. AGIL focussed on the stdiy of the ageing characteristics of additively manufactured austenitic stainless steel with a "powder to mechanical failure" Approach. Recent Highlights are presented and a perspective for future studies.
Residual stresses in Laser Beam Melting (LBM) – Critical Review and outlook of activities at BAM
(2019)
Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies have experienced an exceedingly rapid growth, which is coupled with the knowledge about the resulting material properties and performance. In particular, residual stress (RS) was soon recognized as an important issue in AM parts, such that parts are usually subjected to a post build-heat-treated. Significant effort has been spent on simulations of RS in AM, especially using finite element methods. As a consequence, the experimental determination of RS has thereby become increasingly important as a validation tool for simulations, as well as a method for assessing the influence of process parameters. In particular, diffraction methods, which are fundamentally non-destructive, offer enormous possibilities to gain knowledge on the residual stress state in real components, since synchrotron radiation and neutrons can penetrate even heavy metals up to several millimeters or centimeters, respectively. Indeed, significant progress has been achieved, in the understanding of the origins of the RS fields as a function of process parameters, as well as their stability under thermal and/or mechanical exposure.
In this paper, a few success stories will be outlined. It will be shown how the determination of RS in metallic parts (with the focus on those produced by laser powder bed fusion) has even revealed that process parameters that were previously considered unimportant (e.g. the position and orientation on the base plate) play a major role in the onset of residual stress accumulation.
However, while RS characterization is starting to be considered in the component design, deposition strategy (e.g. build plate temperature), and even in the definition of the relevant metric to assess the quality of a part, much is still to be investigates about the hypotheses underlying its experimental determination. Therefore, some aspects to be aware of, or even those which to date are unclear, will also be discussed. These include the determination of the stress-free reference and of the principal axes of stress. All of these aspects will lead towards a comprehensive understanding of the process-structure-performance relationships in AM materials and parts.
Rapid cooling rates and steep temperature gradients are characteristic of additively manufactured (AM) parts and important factors for residual stress formation which have implications on structural integrity. This study examined the influence of heat input on the distribution of residual stresses in two prisms produced by laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) of austenitic stainless steel 316L.
The layers of the prisms were exposed using two distinct helix scanning strategies: one scanned from the centre to the perimeter and the other from the perimeter to the centre. Residual stresses were characterised at one plane perpendicular to the building direction at half of its build height using neutron diffraction. In addition, the defect distribution was analysed via micro X-ray computed tomography (µCT) in a twin specimen.
Both scanning strategies reveal residual stress distributions typical for AM: compressive stresses in the bulk and tensile stresses at the surface. However, temperature gradients and maximum stress levels differ due to the different heat input. Regarding the X-ray µCT results, they show an accumulation of defects at the corners where the laser direction turned through 90°.
The results demonstrate that neutron diffraction and X-ray µCT can be successfully used as non-destructive methods to analyse through-thickness residual stress and defect distribution in AM parts, and in the presented case, illustrate the influence of scanning strategies. This approach contributes to deeper assessment of structural integrity of AM materials and components.
Laser based Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) is an additive manufacturing technique that has been continuously developed in the past years. It offers unparalleled design freedom and the resulting mechanical properties match, in some cases even exceed, those of materials processed by conventional manufacturing techniques. Nonetheless the process is prone to create Residual Stresses (RS) resulting from the sequential melting and solidification of the material. RS can reduce load bearing capacity and generate unwanted distortions thus diminishing the potential of L-PBF. This research activity aimed at characterizing the RS state in Inconel 718 L-PBF specimens using multiple diffraction methods. The microstructure as well as the surface and bulk residual stresses were investigated. The RS analysis was performed using X-ray, synchrotron and neutron diffraction methods to provide information at different depths within the specimen. The measurements were performed at the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und –prüfung (BAM), the EDDI beamline at BESSY II synchrotron and E3 line at BER II neutron reactor of the Helmholtz-Zentrum für Materialien und Energie (HZB) Berlin. The results revealed a depth depending RS state. The longitudinal and transverse stress components measured by X-ray and synchrotron at the surface agree well, exhibiting stress values around the yield strength of the material. In addition, synchrotron mapping showed gradients along the width and length of the sample for the longitudinal and transverse stress components. Lower RS values compared to surface RS were measured in the bulk of the material using neutron diffraction. The longitudinal stress component in the bulk was tensile and gradually decreased towards the edge of the specimen. The normal component however did not change significantly along the specimen dimensions and was of compressive nature. The transversal component was almost negligible. The results indicate that a stress re-distribution takes place during the deposition of the consecutive layers, which has to be further investigated.
Welding residual stress engineering by means of an adjusted martensite phase transformation would be highly attractive as detrimental tensile residual stresses may be prevented already during welding without time and cost intensive post processing. The present study shows a synchrotron diffraction analysis of a martensitic steel subjected to thermo-mechanical load cycles. Experiments were conducted regarding the microstructural strain response during the austenite to martensite transformation. The strains are a function of the temperature and the specific loads applied during cooling. The relation between the transformation plasticity of the material, the amount of martensite formed and the arising strains can thus be assessed. The lattice plane specific strains were compared to experimental findings from (macro) dilatation tests. It is shown that the microscopic material behavior differs remarkably from the one observed on the macroscopic scale, what leads to characteristic residual stresses in the material.
Residual stresses are crucial when assessing the performance of welded components. The present work deals with the possibilities of transferring the real-life boundary conditions of welding, which influence the residual stress, into the laboratory. The possibilities of a test system with a load capacity of 2 MN specifically developed for online monitoring of stress formation and cracking are shown. Due to the structural design, global process, geometry and material-dependent stresses are induced, which can be quantified in-situ during welding and post weld heat treatment. Examples are presented how the conditions to be found during production are simulated in the laboratory. It is shown how welding residual stresses in high-strength steels are affected by the heat control. Elevated working temperatures significantly increase the tensile residual stresses in the heat affected zone (HAZ). The effect of mechanical stresses resulting from welding on stress relief cracking is demonstrated by the example of a creep resistant steel. Reheat cracks were monitored online during post weld heat treatment.
Oxidation effects on the functionality and formation of laser-induced periodic surface structures
(2019)
In the last decades, the formation of laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) has been widely studied, not only to stablish a general understanding of the main mechanisms present during the irradiation with ultrashort laser pulses, but also to identify the main processing parameters for its fabrication on various technical materials. However, an important and almost always present effect that is typically set aside is the material oxidation during or after the laser processing. Usually, this leads to optical, chemical, structural and mechanical alterations that are seldomly studied in detail. Therefore, in this work we present a study that includes the formation of LIPSS on Ti6Al4V alloy for tribological applications were different oxidations layers are involved.
The material characterization using different techniques, such as energy dispersive X-ray analyses (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), micro Raman spectroscopy (µ-RS), and depth-profiling Auger electron microscopy (AEM), and other techniques, confirms the formation of a non-negligible superficial oxide layer – strongly dependent on the specific processing parameters. We perform tribological experiments on laser irradiated samples oxidized by alternative ways to have a comparison on its friction performance. The obtained results show significant differences that depend directly on the thickness and the quality of the oxidized layer. This may open a fertile research area until now barely explored with clear impact on LIPSS based applications.
Despite of the significant advances in AM process optimization there is still a lack of experimental results and understanding regarding the mechanical behavior and microstructural evolution of AMparts, especially in loading conditions typical for safety-relevant applications e.g. in the aerospace or power engineering. Within the scope of the presented investigations, a characterization of the fatigue behavior of additively manufactured Ti-6Al-4V in the low cycle fatigue regime was carried out in the range of 0.3 to 1.0 % strain amplitude at room temperature, 250°C and 400°C. The Ti-6Al-4V specimens are machined out of lean cylindrical rods, which were fabricated using powder laser metal deposition (LMD) with an improved build-up strategy. The improved strategy incorporates variable track overlap ratios to achieve a constant growth in the shell and core area. The low-cycle-fatigue behavior is described based on cyclic deformation curves and strain-based fatigue life curves. The lifetimes are fitted based on the Manson-Coffin-Basquin relationship. A characterization of the microstructure and the Lack-of-Fusion (LoF)-defect-structure in the as-built state is performed using optical light microscopy and high-resolution computed tomography (CT) respectively. The failure mechanism under loading is described in terms of LoF-defects-evolution and crack growth mechanism based on an interrupted LCF test with selected test parameters. After failure, scanning electron microscopy, digital and optical light microscopy and CT are used to describe the failure mechanisms both in the longitudinal direction and in the cross section of the specimens. The fatigue lives obtained are comparable with results from previous related studies and are shorter than those of traditionally manufactured (wrought) Ti-6Al-4V. In this study new experimental data and understanding of the mechanical behavior under application-relevant loading conditions (high temperature, cyclic plasticity) is gained. Furthermore, a better understanding of the role of LoFdefects and AM-typical microstructural features on the failure mechanism of LMD Ti-6Al-4V is achieved.
Residual stresses count among the most limiting factors in the application of additively manufactured materials in safety relevant components subject to cyclic loading. The source of such stresses is inherent in the manufacturing Laser Beam Melted (LBM) process due to rapid cooling and solidification and their distribution in the specimen or component is not homogeneous, but it is usually characterized by high gradients. Moreover, the magnitude of the residual stress field depends very much on the orientation, being higher in the build direction.
Many works in the literature advise to carry out a post-LBM treatment to relieve residual stresses, even though particular attention should be paid in choosing the parameters for the thermal treatment in order to avoid microstructural/phase transformations, which would affect greatly the mechanical properties of the material.
Particularly in the case of the austenitic stainless steel 316L, it has been shown that annealing at high temperatures (above 900°C), besides relieving the residual stresses, may cause recrystallization, grain growth and even phase transformation. In contrast, if a too low annealing temperature is chosen in order to preserve the microstructure, the residual stresses cannot be completely relieved.
This work aims to address the effect of residual stresses on short and long crack propagation for SEN(B) specimens made of 316L fabricated by LBM, in which notches have been machined by electro-discharge machining (EDM) on the mid-plane, perpendicular to the build direction. The specimens underwent different annealing treatments in inert atmosphere, in which the maximum temperature has been varied up to 900°C. The amount of residual stresses and their distribution has been measured by X-ray and neutron diffraction and the specimens have been subject to cyclic loading in a resonant testing machine. The tests show a massive influence of the residual stresses in the build direction on the resistance to fatigue crack propagation of additively manufactured 316L. Finally, a comparison with conventionally manufactured 316L is presented.
The present study deals with the experimental characterization of short crack propagation in SLM (selective-laser-melting) manufactured stainless steel. More specifically, the determination of cyclic R-curves is discussed. This describes the dependency of the crack propagation threshold on crack growth during the short crack propagation stage. For metals, the threshold, starting at a material-intrinsic value, increases until it reaches a value independent of the crack length due to crack closure phenomena which build up at that stage. The cyclic R-curve, when used in the frame of a cyclic R curve analysis, characterizes the resistance of a material to fatigue crack growth and the ability to arrest a physically short crack. Thus, it is the link between classical fatigue and fracture mechanics. In the high-cycle-fatigue range, the short crack propagation stage dominates the overall lifetime, i.e., the number of cycles until failure. Below the fatigue limit crack arrest of hitherto propagable micro-cracks will occur. The effort for the experimental characterization of the short fatigue crack propagation behavior and the cyclic R-curve is very high compared to experiments on long crack propagation. A very exact measurement of crack extension is required, since small increments need to be depicted. Pre-cracking must leave a closure free initial crack, since closure must be build up only by the cyclic R-curve. The closure-free status is achieved by compression pre-cracking. The aim of the present study is an insight into the influence of an AM process on the short crack propagation threshold. Cyclic R-curves are experimentally determined at different load-ratios for 316L austenitic steel specimens produced by SLM and conventional manufacturing. Residual stresses are measured in the crack plane and their influence on the cyclic R-curve is discussed.
Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) is a promising additive manufacturing (AM) technology for metal part production especially for complex and lightweight structures or functional designs. In L PBF processes several by-products including welding plume and its condensates, spatter and ejected powder are generated during laser exposure. Investigations of micro- and nano-sized by-products have received little attention in literature. This study focuses on the analysis of particle emissions in L PBF of 316L stainless steel using a scattered light aerosol spectrometer and a fast mobility particle sizer spectrometer during the process which allows for in-situ analysis of particle sizes in the range of 6 nm to 100 µm. A distinct correlation of emission signals to part position can be revealed. In addition, a significant influence of laser scanning vector directions on emission signals is presented. Furthermore, differing powder layer thicknesses can be recognised by deviations in emission signals.
Laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) is one of the most promising additive manufacturing (AM) technologies for the production of complex metallic real part components. Due to the multitude of factors influencing process conditions and part quality and due to the layer-wise characteristic of the process, monitoring of process signatures seems to be mandatory in case of the production of safety critical components. Here, the iterative process nature enables unique access for in-situ monitoring during part manufacture. In this talk, the successful test of the synchronous use of a high-frequency infrared camera and a camera for long time exposure, working in the visible spectrum (VIS) and equipped with a near infrared filter (NIR), will be introduced as a machine manufacturer independent thermal detection monitoring set-up. Thereby, the synchronous use of an infrared camera and a VIS NIR camera combines the advantages of high framerate and high spatial resolution. The manufacture of a 316L stainless steel specimen, containing purposely seeded defects and volumes with forced changes of energy inputs, was monitored during the build. The measured thermal responses are analysed and compared with a defect mapping obtained by micro X-ray computed tomography (CT).
The first results regarding methods for data analysis, derived correlations between measured signals and detected defects as well as sources of possible data misinterpretation are presented in this talk.
WelDX is a newly started research project at BAM publicly funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Over the course of three years the project aims to build the foundation for a publicly accessible file format and to foster research collaboration in arc welding on a national and international level.
The talk will motivate benefits and discuss challenges of using a common file format designed to describe, store and share arc welding research data in the scope of "Open Science". By using common open source software and tools, welding data will be made more accessible and reusable so that new scientific practices may emerge.
The proposed file format aims to be easy to use for common welding applications while also offering the possibility to describe complex experiments for state of the art welding research.
In addition the talk will illustrate how in the future other facilities and researchers will be able to use experimental arc welding data generated at BAM for their own research, for example to conduct their own data analysis or welding process and thermo-mechanical simulations.
The talk will give an overview of past, ongoing and future activities at BAM welding divisions, specifically those regarding prospects and challenges of the ongoing digital transformation and the move to more accessible research data (open science) with concerns to welding research. We will discuss current ways to publish and share research results inside the welding community and highlight approaches and advancements from other scientific fields to improve accessibility and reproducibility. We would also like to discuss the feasibility of integrating open science principles into the current IIW landscape of meetings, publications and education. In Addition we will introduce our upcoming series of workshops organized by BAM focusing on defining and implementing an open source file format specifically designed to publish and exchange high quality welding research data.
Residual stresses in Laser Beam Melting (LBM) – Critical Review and outlook of activities at BAM
(2019)
Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies have experienced an exceedingly rapid growth, which is coupled with the knowledge about the resulting material properties and performance. In particular, residual stress (RS) was soon recognized as an important issue in AM parts, such that parts are usually subjected to a post build-heat-treated. Significant effort has been spent on simulations of RS in AM, especially using finite element methods. As a consequence, the experimental determination of RS has thereby become increasingly important as a validation tool for simulations, as well as a method for assessing the influence of process parameters. In particular, diffraction methods, which are fundamentally non-destructive, offer enormous possibilities to gain knowledge on the residual stress state in real components, since synchrotron radiation and neutrons can penetrate even heavy metals up to several millimeters or centimeters, respectively. Indeed, significant progress has been achieved, in the understanding of the origins of the RS fields as a function of process parameters, as well as their stability under thermal and/or mechanical exposure.
In this paper, a few success stories will be outlined. It will be shown how the determination of RS in metallic parts (with the focus on those produced by laser powder bed fusion) has even revealed that process parameters that were previously considered unimportant (e.g. the position and orientation on the base plate) play a major role in the onset of residual stress accumulation.
However, while RS characterization is starting to be considered in the component design, deposition strategy (e.g. build plate temperature), and even in the definition of the relevant metric to assess the quality of a part, much is still to be investigates about the hypotheses underlying its experimental determination. Therefore, some aspects to be aware of, or even those which to date are unclear, will also be discussed. These include the determination of the stress-free reference and of the principal axes of stress. All of these aspects will lead towards a comprehensive understanding of the process-structure-performance relationships in AM materials and parts.
Because of its excellent corrosion resistance, a high tensile strength together with a high ductility, duplex stainless steel 2205 offers many areas of application in the chemical and the offshore industry, to name just two. Though welding, especially laser beam welding accompanied by high cooling rates, duplex steels tend to perform higher ferrite contents in weld metal upon cooling down from melting temperature as the base metal. This trend leads to a reduction of the ductility as well as the corrosion resistance of the weld joint. To overcome this problem a solution, based on buffering the plate edges by laser metal deposition with material containing higher Ni concentrations prior to the laser welding was suggested. This method offers more benefits in comparison to conventional usage of higher Ni-alloyed filler wire due to the better control over Ni-distribution in the weld seam, resulting in balanced austenite- ferrite ratio everywhere in the weld metal.
In this context different mixtures of duplex and nickel powder were investigated as well as different process parameters, that enable a smooth surface structure with slightly reduced ferrite contents. In a second step the possibility of welding those edges defect free with standard parameters while achieving balanced austenite- ferrite ratio was verified with metallographic analysis of the microstructure, Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) and impact testing according to Charpy. The improved corrosion resistance of the welds in comparison to unbuffered ones was observed with the ASTM G48 standard test method.
Because of its excellent corrosion resistance, high tensile strength and high ductility, duplex stainless steel 2205 offers many areas of application. Though laser beam welding accompanied by high cooling rates, duplex steels tend to perform higher ferrite contents in weld metal as the base metal, which leads to a reduction of ductility and corrosion resistance of the weld joint. To overcome this problem, a solution, based on buttering the plate edges by laser metal deposition (LMD) with material containing higher Ni concentrations prior to laser welding was suggested.
In this context different process parameters for LMD and different mixtures of duplex and nickel powder, were investigated. In a second step the possibility of welding those edges defect free while achieving balanced austenite-ferrite ratio was verified with metallographic analysis, Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD) and impact testing according to Charpy. The improved corrosion resistance was observed with ASTM G48 standard test method.
The geometrical characteristics of the weld end crater are commonly used for the validation of numerical results in welding simulation. A semi-analytical model calculating the cooling stage of the welding process after the moving energy source is turned off has been developed. A solution for various combinations of heat sources and workpieces has been found. The theoretical limits for the heat transfer of the absorbed energy during cooling in a thin plate and a semi-infinite body were studied. It is shown that after turning off the energy source, an additional melting of the base material in longitudinal direction may occur. The developed technique is applied to complete-penetration keyhole laser beam welding of a 2 mm thick austenitic chromium-nickel 316L steel plate at a welding speed of 20 mm/s and a laser power of 2.3 kW. The results show a theoretical increase of the weld end crater length in comparison to the length of the steady-state weld pool of up to 19 %. A shift of the centre of the end crater, in which the solidification of the liquid metal ends, towards the tail of the end crater relative to the axis of the heat source at the time of its termination, was computed. The speed and the direction of crystallization of the molten material in the weld pool and the end crater were found to be different. A good agreement between the computational results and the welding experiments was achieved.
The weld pool dynamics and shape play a fundamental role in keyhole mode welding. The presented work aims the experimental and numerical investigation of the influence of the weld pool characteristics on the formation of hot cracking. The experimental procedure allows recording the molten pool in the longitudinal section of a butt joint configuration of 15 mm thick structural steel and transparent quartz glass by using a high-speed video camera and two thermal imaging cameras. The observations show that the dimensions of the weld pool vary depending on the depth. The regions close to the surface form a teardrop-shaped weld pool. A bulge-region and its temporal evolution are observed approximately in the middle of the depth of the weld pool, where hot cracking appears. A numerical framework including models for the weld pool dynamics, global temperature field, transient stress state, crystal growth, diffusion and macro-segregation and subroutines for their one-way couplings is developed. The numerically obtained and experimentally observed results are in a good agreement. It is shown that the bulge-region leads to a delay in the solidification behavior, increased temporal tensile stresses and accumulation of impurities in the defect region and hence enhance the probability of hot cracking formation.
The weld pool dynamics and shape play a fundamental role in keyhole mode welding. The presented work aims the experimental and numerical investigation of the influence of the weld pool characteristics on the formation of hot cracking. The experimental procedure allows recording the molten pool in the longitudinal section of a butt joint configuration of 15 mm thick structural steel and transparent quartz glass by using a high-speed video camera and two thermal imaging cameras. The observations show that the dimensions of the weld pool vary depending on the depth. The regions close to the surface form a teardrop-shaped weld pool. A bulge-region and its temporal evolution are observed approximately in the middle of the depth of the weld pool, where hot cracking appears. A numerical framework including models for the weld pool dynamics, global temperature field, transient stress state, crystal growth, diffusion and macro-segregation and subroutines for their one-way couplings is developed. The numerically obtained and experimentally observed results are in a good agreement. It is shown that the bulge-region leads to a delay in the solidification behavior, increased temporal tensile stresses and accumulation of impurities in the defect region and hence enhance the probability of hot cracking formation.
The control of friction and wear is a major concern in many industrial applications. A promising method for a tailored surface modification is the so-called laser implantation technique. This method combines surface texturing and material optimization in one processing step by a localized dispersing of hard ceramic particles using pulsed laser radiation. Wear resistant, protruding micrometric features (implants) with defined geometry can be created in deterministic pattern where needed on highly stressed surfaces, i.e. on forming or cutting tools. However, in order to maintain the implants over the tool’s lifetime, a suitable selection of hard ceramic particles is a prerequisite. They must provide a defect-free Metal Matrix Composite with a high share of homogeneously distributed particles and especially a high implant hardness.
In this study TiN, TiC and TiB2 hard particles were compared as implant materials for the first time. By a systematic variation of the pulse power and pulse duration, their dispersing behavior and influence on the material properties of AISI D2 tool steel was investigated. Although all powder materials had grain sizes smaller than 10 µm, it was possible to disperse them by pulsed laser radiation and to obtain defect-free protruding implants. The highest share of dispersed particles (~64 %) was observed for TiB2. By scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, it was also shown that a significant share of the pre-placed particles was dissolved by the laser beam and precipitated as nanometer sized particles within the matrix during solidification. These in-situ formed particles have a decisive influence on the material properties. While the TiN and TiC implants have shown maximum hardness values of 750 HV1 and 850 HV1, the TiB2 implants have shown the highest hardness values with more than 1600 HV1. By X-ray diffraction, it was possible to ascribe the lower hardness values of TiC and TiN implants to high amounts of retained austenite in the metal matrix. By implanting TiB2, the formation of retained austenite was successfully suppressed due to the in-situ formation of TiC particles, which was proven by electron backscatter diffraction. In conclusion, all the implant materials are basically suitable for laser implantation on AISI D2 tool steel. However, TiB2 has shown the most promising results.
A novel approach for the reconstruction of an equivalent volumetric heat source from a known weld pool shape is proposed. It is based on previously obtained weld pool geometries from a steady-state thermo-fluid dynamics simulation. Hereby the weld pool dimensions are obtained under consideration of the most crucial physical phenomena, such as phase transformations, thermo-capillary convection, natural convection and temperature-dependent material properties. The algorithm provides a time and calibration efficient way for the reproduction of the weld pool shape by local Lamé curves. By adjusting their parameters, the identification of the finite elements located within the weld pool is enabled. The heat input due to the equivalent heat source is assured by replacing the detected nodes’ temperature by the melting temperature.
The model offers variable parameters making it flexible and adaptable for a wide range of workpiece thicknesses and materials and allows for the investigation of transient thermal effects, e.g. the cooling stage of the workpiece. The calculation times remain acceptably short especially when compared to a fully coupled process simulation. The computational results are in good agreement with performed complete-penetration laser beam welding experiments.
The additional element from the filler wire in the laser beam welding is usually distributed inhomogeneously in the final weld due to the high solidification rate of weld pool. It has been found that the electromagnetic stirring produced by an external oscillating magnetic field can enhance the material mixing in the weld pool to achieve a more uniform element distribution. However, the magnetic field has a highly non-linear and multi-coupled interaction with the weld pool behavior, which makes the quantitative explanation of the physical mechanism difficult. In this study, the effect of electromagnetic stirring on the transport phenomena in the wire feed laser beam welding is investigated by a numerical modelling. A 3D transient multi-physical model considering the magnetohydrodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, keyhole dynamics and element transport is developed. The multiple reflections and the Fresnel absorption of the laser on the keyhole wall are calculated using the ray tracing method. The numerical results show that a Lorentz force produced by the oscillating magnetic field and its induced eddy current gives significant influence on the transport phenomena in the molten pool. The forward and downward flow is enhanced by the electromagnetic stirring, which homogenizes the distribution of the additional elements from a nickel-based filler wire in a steel weld pool. The numerical results show a good agreement with the high-speed images of the molten pool, the fusion line from the optical micrograph and the element distribution from the energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. This work provides a physical base for the electromagnetic-controlled laser beam welding and some guidance for the selection of electromagnetic parameters.
Plasma-Transferred-Arc (PTA) welding is a process that enables high deposition rates, but also causes increased thermal 9 load on the component. Laser based Direct Energy Deposition (DED) welding, on the other hand, achieves a high level of 10 precision and thus comparatively low deposition rates, which can lead to high processing costs. Combining laser and arc 11 energy aims to exploit the respective advantages of both technologies. 12 In this study, different possibilities of this process combination are presented using a PTA system and a 2 kW disk laser. 13 This includes the combination in a common process zone as a highspeed plasma laser cladding technology (HPLC), which 14 achieves process speeds of 10 m/min. Besides that it is being examined whether a pre-running plasma arc can be used to 15 coat difficult-to-weld rail steel with a carbon content of 0.8 % due to a preheating effect. Furthermore, a smoothing of the 16 coating by a plasma arc following the laser is investigated.
Some zinc coated advanced high strength steels (AHSS), under certain manufacturing conditions, are known to be prone to liquid metal embrittlement (LME) during resistance spot welding. LME is an undesired phenomenon, which can cause both surface and internal cracks in a spot weld, potentially influencing its strength. An effort is made to understand influencing factors of LME better, and evaluate geometry-material combinations regarding their LME susceptibility. Manufacturers benefit from such knowledge because it improves the processing security of the materials. The experimental procedure of welding under external load is performed with samples of multiple AHSS classes with strengths up to 1200 MPa, including dual phase, complex phase and TRIP steels. This way, externally applied tensile load values are determined, which cause liquid metal embrittlement in the samples to occur. In the future, finite element simulation of this procedure gives access to in-situ stress and strain values present during LME formation. The visualization improves the process understanding, while a quantification of local stresses and strains allows an assessment of specific welded geometries.
Renowned institutions in the field of tribology combine their testing and analytical capabilities with experts in materials/process information management technology to provide the respective services in Europe (i-TRIBOMAT). This requires a centralized materials information management system or the standardised capture, consolidation and harmonization of tribological information.
By allowing economic on demand manufacturing of highly customized and complex workpieces, metal based additive manufacturing (AM) has the prospect to revolutionize many industrial areas. Since AM is prone to the formation of defects during the building process, a fundamental requirement for AM to become applicable in most fields is the ability to guarantee the adherence to strict quality and safety standards. A possible solution for this problem lies in the deployment of various in-situ monitoring techniques. For most of these techniques, the application to AM is still very poorly understood. Therefore, the BAM in its mission to provide safety in technology has initiated the project “Process Monitoring of AM” (ProMoAM). In this project, a wide range of in-situ process monitoring techniques, including active and passive thermography, optical tomography, optical emission and absorption spectroscopy, eddy current testing, laminography, X-ray backscattering and photoacoustic methods, are applied to laser metal deposition (LMD), laser powder bed fusion and wire arc AM. Since it is still unclear which measured quantities are relevant for the detection of defects, these measurements are performed very thoroughly. In successive steps, the data acquired by all these methods is fused and compared to the results of reference methods such as computer tomography and ultrasonic immersion testing. The goal is to find reliable methods to detect the formation of defects during the building process. The detailed acquired data sets may also be used for comparison with simulations.
Here, we show first results of high speed (> 300 Hz) thermographic measurements of the LMD process in the SWIR range using 316L as building material. For these experiments, the camera was mounted fixed to the welding arm of the LMD machine to keep the molten pool in focus, regardless of the shape of the specimen. As the thermograms do not contain any information about the current spatial position during the building process, we use an acceleration sensor to track the movement and synchronize the measured data with the predefined welding path. This allows us to reconstruct the geometry of the workpieces and assign the thermographic data to spatial positions. Furthermore, we investigate the influence of the acquisition wavelength on the thermographic data by comparing measurements acquired with different narrow bandpass filters (50 nm FWHM) in a spectral range from 1150 nm to 1550 nm.
This research was funded by BAM within the Focus Area Materials.
The presented study deals with the performing and mechanical testing of single pass hybrid laser-arc welds (HLAW) on 25 mm thick plates made of steel grade S355J2. One of the challenges have to be solved at full penetration HLAW of thick plates is the drop formation occurring due to the disbalances of the forces acting in the keyhole and on the melt pool surface. Such irregularities mostly limit the use of high-power laser beam welding or HLAW of thick-walled constructions. To overcome this problem, an innovative concept of melt pool support based on generating Lorentz forces in the weld pool is used in this work. This method allows to perform high quality welds without sagging even for welding of 25 mm thick plates in flat position at a welding speed of 0.9 m min-1. For the obtain of full penetrated welds a laser beam power of 19 kW was needed. A high V-impact energy of up to 160 J could be achieved at the test temperature of 0 °C. Even at the most critical part in the weld root an impact energy of 60 J in average could be reached. The tensile strength of the weld reaches that of the base material. An introduce of the HLAW process with electromagnetic support of the melt pool in the industrial practice is an efficient alternative to the time- and cost-intensive arc-based multi-layer welding techniques which are established nowadays for joining of thick-walled constructions.
The present work deals with the development of a strategy for the prevention of end crater defects in high-power laser welding of thick-walled circumferential welds. A series of experiments were performed to understand the influence of the welding parameters on the formation of end crater defects such as pores, cracks, excessive root-side drop-through and shrinkage cavities in the overlap area. An abrupt switch-off of the laser power while closing the circumferential weld leads to a formation of a hole which passes through the whole welded material thickness. A laser power ramp causes solidification cracks which are initiated on the transition from full-penetration mode to partial penetration. Strategies with a reduction of the welding speed shows a creation of inadmissible root sagging. Defocusing the laser beam led to promising results in terms of avoiding end crater defects. Cracks and pores in the overlap area could be effectively avoided by using defocusing techniques. A strategy for avoiding of end crater imperfections was tested on flat specimens of steel grade S355J2 with a wall thickness of 10 mm and then transferred on the 9.5 mm thick pipe sections made of high-strength steel X100Q.
The presentation provides a discussion and damage tolerant assessment of metallic AM components. In the focus are problems of the determination of representative material data, the effect of material defects and residual stresses. Starting with the actual state-of-the-art in the field, options and possibilities of a damage tolerant design for AM are discussed.
Single-pass Hybrid Laser Arc Welding of Thick Materials Using Electromagnetic Weld Pool Support
(2019)
Hybrid laser-arc welding process allows single-pass welding of thick materials, provides good quality formation of joints with minimal thermal deformations and a high productivity in comparison with arc-based welding processes. Nevertheless, thick-walled steels with a thickness of 20 mm or more are still multi-pass welded using arc welding processes, due to increased process instability by increasing laser power. One limitation factor is the inadmissible formation of gravity drop-outs at the root. To prevent this, an innovative concept of electromagnetic weld pool support is used in this study. With help of such system a stable welding process can be established for 25 mm thick steel plates and beyond. Sound welds could be obtained which are tolerant to gaps and misalignment of the welded parts. The adaptation of this system to laser and hybrid laser-arc welding process can dramatically increase the potential field of application of these technologies for real industrial implementation.
Solidification cracking of metals is a well-researched topic in the field of welding science. A material’s susceptibility to solidification cracking can be tested using numerous different specialized test procedures, one of which is the Modified Varestraint-/Transvarestraint test (MVT). It was developed at BAM in 1982 and is internationally standardised. Over the decades, this test has been extensively used to characterise the solidification cracking resistance of many different materials.
The present study was conducted to further investigate the influences of the standardised MVT testing parameters, as well as the characteristics of evaluation methods on the results. Several different high alloyed martensitic LTT (low transformation temperature) filler materials, CrNi and CrMn type, were used. In previous pilot studies, these alloys have shown a rather distinctive solidification cracking behaviour.
First, the effects of different process parameter sets on the solidification cracking response were measured using the standard approach. Subsequently, μCT scans were performed on the specimens. The results consistently show sub surface cracking, to significant, yet varying extents. Different Primary solidification types were found using WDX-analysis, an aspect that is regarded to be the main difference between the CrNi- and CrMn-type materials and their cracking characteristics.
Results show that when it comes to testing of modern high-performance alloys, one set of standard MVT testing parameters might not be equally suitable for all materials. Also, to properly accommodate different solidification types, sub-surface cracking has to be taken into account.
In this study, the influence of the welding speed, the arc power and the laser focal position on the solidification crack formation for partial penetration laser hybrid welded thick-walled plates were investigated. Experimentally, a direct correlation between the welding speed and the crack number was observed. That is by reducing the welding velocity the crack number was decreased. The focal position shows also a significant influence on the crack number. Since by focusing the laser on the specimen surface, the crack number has been significantly diminished.
The wire feed speed showed a very slight influence on the crack formation. That is due to the large distance between the critical region for cracking and the arc region.
The numerical model shows a high-stress concentration in the weld root for both components (vertical and transversal).
Numerically, the reduced welding speed showed a strong impact on stress, as the model demonstrated a lower stress amount by decreasing the welding speed. The solidification cracking in the weld root is a result of interaction between metallurgical and geometrical and thermomechanical factors.
In this study, the influence of the welding speed and the arc power on the solidification crack formation for partial penetration laser hybrid welded Thick-Walled plates were investigated. Experimentally, a linear correlation between the welding velocity and the crack number was observed. That is by reducing the welding velocity the crack number was reduced.
The reduced welding velocity showed a strong impact on stress, as the model demonstrated a very lower stress amount in comparison to the reference case. The reduction of the welding speed could be a helpful technique to reduce the hot cracking. The wire feed speed showed a very slight influence on the crack formation. That can be returned to the large distance between the critical region for cracking and the arc region.
The shape of the parts, created by the technology of direct laser metal deposition (DLMD), is influenced by various parameters, for example, the power and diameter of the laser source spot. The contribution of energy from the laser affects the temperature distribution in the formed layers. The changing temperature in the working area entails a change in the geometry of the layers and affects the stability of the process. In this paper, experiments on the measurement of temperature cycles in the DLMD process with different directions of the filling track are carried out. An infrared camera was used to measure thermal cycles. The calibration of the acquired data (i.e. correspondence table between the intensity of thermal radiation of the material and the absolute temperature) was done with help of two-color pyrometer ex situ and in situ measurements. The experiments are carried out on two materials 316L and Inconel 718. The effect of the maximum temperature on the layer height is shown, and thermal cycles in the formation of layers for different filling strategies are presented.