Effect of Intermetallic Compounds Content on Laser Welding Performance of Al-Fe Alloy Sheets

Abstract

The present study investigated the laser welding performance of Al-Fe aluminum alloy sheets with different contents of intermetallic compounds. Under the same welding parameters, the alloy of higher intermetallic compounds content has wide and deep weld pools with uniform sizes. The alloy of lower intermetallic compounds content has narrow and shallow weld pools with nonuniform sizes. The higher content of intermetallic compounds results in higher laser absorptivity and lower thermal conductivity, and then increases the effective absorbed energy during welding, which is beneficial to the formation of wide and deep weld pools. The distribution uniformity of intermetallic compounds influences the size uniformity of weld pools. In the alloy with lower content of intermetallic compounds, the nonuniform distribution of intermeallic compounds results in the formation of abnormal weld pool, leading to the nonuniform size of the weld pools. In the alloy with higher content of intermetallic compounds, uniform distribution of intermetallic compounds make the size of weld pools more uniform.