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Effects of processing parameters on underfill defects in deep penetration laser welding of thick plates

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Abstract

Underfill defect in welding affects not only the surface integrity but also the mechanical properties of workpiece. In this paper, the effects of the process parameters on underfill defects were investigated, and the deep penetration welding by a 10-kW fiber laser on 12-mm-thick stainless steel plates was used as the case study. The correlation of the processing parameters with the formation and elimination of underfill defects was analyzed and discussed. It was found that during the autogenous laser welding of thick plates, the direction of laser beam relative to gravity has a significant effect on the formation of underfill defects, and the preferable direction was an inclination angle of 60° with respect to the gravity. A negative defocus tended to obtain a full penetration weld with underfill and undercut defects. The higher the welding speed was, the lower the underfill depth was on the top surface. This phenomenon was observed on the full penetration welds at a defocus of − 10 mm. With a negative defocus, it became feasible to optimize the combination of the focal position and the welding speed to achieve a satisfactory appearance of welds. In addition, a bottom-shielding ambience helped the full penetration in the laser welding process positively.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Prof. Zhuming Bi from Purdue University Fort Wayne for polishing the English.

Funding

The authors are grateful to the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51605045, 51405034, 51641502), and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province of China (No. 2015JJ3003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Lightweight and Reliability Technology for Engineering Vehicle, Education Department of Hunan Province, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, 410114, People’s Republic of China

    Mingjun Zhang, Kun Tang, Jian Zhang, Cong Mao & Yongle Hu

  2. School of Energy and Power Engineering, Key Laboratory of Efficient and Clean Energy Utilization, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, 410114, China

    Mingjun Zhang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    Mingjun Zhang & Genyu Chen

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  1. Mingjun Zhang
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  2. Kun Tang
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Correspondence to Mingjun Zhang.

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Zhang, M., Tang, K., Zhang, J. et al. Effects of processing parameters on underfill defects in deep penetration laser welding of thick plates. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 96, 491–501 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-018-1613-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-018-1613-x

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