Abstract
Laser beam welding with partial gas shielding using local gas flows has been shown to be very effective in reducing spatter, especially when welding high-alloy steels at high processing speeds (≥ 8 m/min). This paper examines the gas flow induced mechanical effect on keyhole geometry and correlating melt flow by means of a computational fluid dynamics analysis. Therefore, keyhole mode laser beam welding of AISI304 was modeled by using the volume of fluid method in FLOW-3D. The mechanical effect of the partial shielding was implemented by considering the gas flow induced dynamic pressure. By varying flow rates, a widening, and a reduction in fluctuation amplitude of the keyhole rear wall was detected. Furthermore, the melt flow dynamics were characterized by less flow velocity and melt movement. The results were validated by a visual comparison with high-speed synchrotron X-ray imaging, showing a high degree of agreement in modeling accuracy of the keyhole dynamics.
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