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- High power laser beam welding (8) (entfernen)
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Full penetration 15 kW Yb fibre laser butt welding of thick AlMg3 (AW 5754) plates was performed in PA position. A contactless inductive electromagnetic weld pool support system was used to prevent gravity dropout of the melt. The welding speed needed to achieve 20 mm penetration was ~0·5 m min-1. An ac power supply of ~244 W at 460 Hz was necessary to completely suppress gravity dropout of the melt and eliminate sagging of the weld pool root side surface. The oscillating magnetic field can suppress the Marangoni convection in the lower part of the weld pool. The system was also successfully used in the full penetration welding of 30 mm thick AlMg3 plates.
The presented apparatus enables laser beam welding of thick materials under local reduced pressure conditions, thus improving the quality of welds and reducing the laser beam power necessary for complete penetration welding. The vacuum cap presented in this article uses a local reduced ambient pressure environment in a tight zone around the welding area and, in contrast to a conventional vacuum chamber, it is movable in the welding direction. The mobile installation is very compact and reaches pressure values of around 200 mbar. The reduced pressure in the vacuum cap is sufficient to generate 50 % higher penetration depth in comparison to welding under ambient pressure conditions. The low pressure around the keyhole reduces the vapour-plasma plume and therefore prevents a defocusing and scattering of the laser radiation. This allows to raise the amount of laser beam power entering the keyhole as well as the effective power density.
The development of the vapour plume during the laser beam welding of metals with propagation directions along the laser beam axis leads to a reduction of the absorbed laser power in the keyhole. These unfavourable effects can be significantly mitigated by the application of a reduced ambient pressure thus decreasing the interaction between the laser beam and evaporation products, which leads to more stable welding process and results in increased penetration depth. A conventional technique use a vacuum chamber principle, similar to that, used for electron beam welding. Application of this technique is restricted by the camera size and reduces thus the advantages of this approach especially for large components. We demonstrate a possibility of mobile local vacuum application, which allows to generate a reduced pressure only in small region around the keyhole. By using of specially designed mobile pressure lock which can be moved along the welding direction absolute pressure of around 200 mbar could be obtained. This is sufficient to increase the welding depth by around 50%. Coupons from S355 were welded with an incremental laser power from 5 kW to 12 kW at atmospheric pressure and compared to those welded at ambient pressure of 200 mbar. The evaluation of the longitudinal section revealed an increase of the welding depth by about 35%. Furthermore, the welding trials in butt joint configuration on 15 mm thick plates at various laser beam power performed for atmospheric and reduced ambient pressure of around 200 mbar. The increase in welding depth up to 40% was established for reduced pressure. Particularly, low welding speeds under reduced pressure were especially advantageous in terms of increasing the welding depth.
The development of the vapour plume during the laser beam welding of metals with propagation directions along the laser beam axis leads to a reduction of the absorbed laser power in the keyhole. The main reasons are the scattering of the laser radiation on the condensed phase of metallic vapour as well as the defocusing of the laser beam due to the density gradient in the vapour plume. These unfavourable effects can be significantly mitigated by the application of a reduced ambient pressure thus decreasing the interaction between the laser beam and evaporation products, which leads to more stable welding process and results in increased penetration depth, as known from previous studies. A conventional technique use a vacuum chamber principle, similar to that, used for electron beam welding. Application of this technique is restricted by the chamber size and reduces thus the advantages of this approach especially for large components. We demonstrate a possibility of mobile local vacuum application, which allows to generate a reduced pressure only in small region around the keyhole. By using of specially designed mobile pressure lock which can be moved along the welding direction absolute pressure of around 200 mbar could be obtained. This is sufficient to increase the welding depth by around 50%. Coupons from S355 were welded with an incremental laser power from 5 kW to 12 kW at atmospheric pressure and compared to those welded at ambient pressure of 200 mbar. The evaluation of the longitudinal section revealed an increase of the welding depth by about 35%. Furthermore, the welding trials in butt joint configuration on 15 mm thick plates at various laser beam power performed for atmospheric and reduced ambient pressure of around 200 mbar. The increase in welding depth up to 40% was established for reduced pressure. Particularly, low welding speeds under reduced pressure were especially advantageous in terms of increasing the welding depth.
The shape of the weld pool in laser beam welding plays a major role to understand the dynamics of the melt and its solidification behavior. The aim of the present work was its experimental and numerical investigation. To visualize the geometry of the melt pool in the longitudinal section a butt joint configuration of 15 mm thick structural steel and transparent quartz glass was used. The weld pool shape was recorded by means of a high-speed video camera and two thermal imaging MWIR and VIS 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 were observed approximately in the middle of the depth of the weld pool. Additionally, a transient numerical simulation was performed until reaching a steady state to obtain the weld pool shape and to understand the formation mechanism of the observed bulging phenomena. A fixed keyhole with an experimentally obtained shape was used to represent the full-penetration laser beam welding process. The model considers the local temperature field, the effects of phase transition, thermo-capillary convection, natural convection and temperature-dependent material properties up to evaporation temperature. It was found that the Marangoni convection and the movement of the laser heat source are the dominant factors for the formation of the bulging-region. Good correlation between the numerically calculated and the experimentally observed weld bead shapes and the time-temperature curves on the upper and bottom surface were found.
The geometry of the melt pool in laser beam welding plays a major role to understand the dynamics of the melt and its solidification behavior. In this study, a butt configuration of 15 mm thick structural steel and transparent quartz glass was used to observe the weld pool geometry by means of high-speed camera and an infrared camera recording. The observations show that the dimensions of the weld pool vary depending on the depth. The areas close to the weld pool surface take a teardrop-shape. A bulge-region and its temporal evolution were observed approximately in the middle of the depth of the weld pool. Additionally, a 3D transient thermal-fluid numerical simulation was performed to obtain the weld pool shape and to understand the formation mechanism of the observed bulging effect. The model takes into account the local temperature field, the effects of phase transition, thermo-capillary convection, natural convection and temperature-dependent material properties up to evaporation temperature. The numerical results showed good accordance and were furthermore used to improve the understanding of the experimentally observed bulging effect.
The shape of the weld pool in laser beam welding plays a major role to understand the dynamics of the melt and its solidification behavior. The aim of the present work was its experimental and numerical investigation. To visualize the geometry of the melt pool in the longitudinal section a butt joint configuration of 15 mm thick structural steel and transparent quartz glass was used. The weld pool shape was recorded by means of a high-speed video camera and two thermal imaging MWIR and VIS 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 were observed approximately in the middle of the depth of the weld pool. Additionally, a transient numerical simulation was performed until reaching a steady state to obtain the weld pool shape and to understand the formation mechanism of the observed bulging phenomena. A fixed keyhole with an experimentally obtained shape was used to represent the full-penetration laser beam welding process. The model considers the local temperature field, the effects of phase transition, thermo-capillary convection, natural convection and temperature-dependent material properties up to evaporation temperature. It was found that the Marangoni convection and the movement of the laser heat source are the dominant factors for the formation of the bulging-region. Good correlation between the numerically calculated and the experimentally observed weld bead shapes and the time-temperature curves on the upper and bottom surface were found.