Modeling of heat transfer and fluid flow during gas tungsten arc welding of commercial pure aluminum

Abstract

In the present study, the temperature and the velocity fields during gas tungsten arc welding of commercial pure aluminum were simulated using the solution of the equations of conversation of mass, energy and momentum in three dimensions and under steady-state heat transfer and fluid flow conditions. Then, by means of the prediction of temperature and velocity distributions, the weld pool geometry, weld thermal cycles and various solidification parameters were calculated. To verify the modeling results, welding experiments were conducted on two samples with different thicknesses and the geometry of the weld pool was measured. It is found that there is a good agreement between the predicted and the measured results. In addition, dimensional analysis was employed to understand the importance of heat transfer by convection and the roles of various driving forces in the weld pool. It is observed that the molten metal convection strongly affects on the weld pool geometry. Also the predictions make it possible to estimate the morphology and the scale of the solidified structure through solidification parameter (G/R). The result show that as the net heat input increases, the importance of convection becomes higher and the value of G/R at the weld pool centerline increases.