Molten Weld Pool Research Articles

Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of a Weld Seam from Magnetron High-Current CO2 Welding

External magnetic field (EMF)-assisted high-current CO2 welding is beneficial for improving the large spatter and poor performance of the welding heat-affected zone for mild steels under high-current welding specifications. In this paper, the droplet transfer behaviors were determined using a high-speed camera on a self-developed magnetically controlled CO2 welding system. Based on these welding specifications, a three-dimensional, transient, multi-energy field coupling welding system model to investigate the mechanism of the droplet and molten pool in EMF-assisted welding was developed. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the welded joint were systematically studied. The results show that the Lorentz force applied by the EMF to twist the droplet decreases the accumulated energy in the short-circuited liquid bridge and changes the liquid metal flow condition, both of which reduce the spatter by 7% but increase the welded joint hardness by 10% and tensile strength by 8%.

Research on the behavior of molten pool in laser deep-penetration welding

Research on the behavior of molten pool in laser deep-penetration welding

Effect of Microgravity on the Metal Droplet Transfer and Bead Characteristics in the Directed Energy Deposition-Arc Process

Abstract Directed energy deposition-arc (DED-arc) is a viable method of metal 3D printing for manufacturing in-space under microgravity conditions. This study investigates the effect of reduced gravity on the droplet transfer in a gas metal arc welding (GMAW)-based DED-arc process. Single bead deposited using GMAW welding process under microgravity and standard terrestrial gravity (1 g) are compared. Microgravity was simulated in a drop tower where the experimental capsule was subjected to 2.5 s of free-fall. The experimental setup for GMAW welding process, including high-speed cameras and sensors, was present within the experimental capsule. Droplet frequency and diameter were measured and compared between microgravity and 1 g using the images obtained. Further, the impact of reduced gravity on weld bead geometry and the distribution of gas porosity was investigated. Microhardness analysis was also conducted on both 1 g and reduced gravity samples to assess variations in material hardness. A statistically significant difference in droplet diameter and frequency was found. This difference is attributed to the reduction in gravitational force. Upon analyzing the weld bead geometry, noticeable variations are detected in the contact angles and the reinforcement of beads formed under different gravity conditions. These differences are attributed to alterations in convection within the molten weld pool. The blowhole analysis revealed a noticeable trend, wherein reduced gravity facilitated the coalescence of gas porosity, resulting in larger diameters due to alterations in weld pool convection. There were no statistically significant changes observed in both microhardness and surface finish.

The energy synergistic mechanism of coaxial heterogeneous-wavelength hybrid laser beam and its effect on welding molten pool dynamics for aluminum alloy

The coaxial heterogeneous-wavelength hybrid laser beam (HW-HLB) heat source featuring a “Gauss + Flat top” energy distribution, which integrates the 1080 nm and 915 nm laser beam, was employed in this paper to achieve excellent stability in the welding of aluminum alloy. The interaction mechanism between aluminum alloy and laser beams with different wavelengths was taken as a point cut to explore the synergistic enhancement mechanism of coaxial HW-HLB . A thermal-fluid coupling model for HW-HLB welding, considering the synergistic effect of dual lasers, was established according to the welding experiment results. The influence of fiber laser power (PF) and diode laser power (PD) on the molten pool flow behavior during welding process was investigated. The dynamic of the molten pool and the maintenance mechanism of the keyhole were elucidated through in-situ monitoring experiments and thermal-flow simulations. The results indicated that, in contrast to the single fiber laser beam (FLB), the power density of HW-HLB presents a significant increase, which results in the “avalanche-like” augmentation of the plasma plume, as well as deeper depth of the keyhole. The energy synergistic enhancement effect of coaxial HW-HLB with PF=2800 W and PD=2500 W performs stronger and thorough changes in the morphology and flow behavior of the molten pool. The introduction of 915 nm laser beam improves the multi-reflection behavior in the inner keyhole. The findings of our research provide a theoretical framework for improving the stability of the laser weld molten pool and the quality of welds in aluminum alloys through the implementation of HW-HLB.

Instability monitoring of molten pool in pure copper laser welding based on a multi-scale cascade model and spatial optical signals

During laser welding of pure copper, instabilities such as violent molten pool oscillation, large spatters, and melt ejection severely damage weld quality, which are caused by copper’s high reflectivity on commonly used infrared laser. The seriously unstable molten pool and keyhole and complicated laser-material interactions result in complex process signal emission waveforms, adding to the difficulties in process stability monitoring tasks. In this work, to break down different contents in the complex signals and deeply analyzing signal-process relation, combinative spatial optical sensor system was designed, and time-frequency signal analysis in multi-scale windows was performed. It was found that the infrared radiation at the front and end side of molten pool indicates the oscillation behavior of liquid metal surface, and the signal fluctuation patterns of visible radiation from different height of metal vapor varied when meeting severe instability like melt ejections. Signal features were extracted based on the understanding of process mechanism and signal behaviors. A cascade model combining Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) was introduced to predict weld seam quality, where the ANN model focused on short-time stability status perception and the SVM model was used to decide macroscopic seam formation defects based on combining outputs of the ANN model in a long-term sampling window. Application results showed that the recognition accuracy of pit was 100 % and the accuracy of uneven toe reached 86.3 %. The multi-source signals of unstable molten pool recognized by the cascade model were summarized. The evolution process of copper molten pool ejection was revealed.

EfficientNet-ECA: A lightweight network based on efficient channel attention for class-imbalanced welding defects classification

Welding defects recognition is crucial for ensuring weldment quality in robot arc welding. Nevertheless, due to unbalanced data distributions, limited computing resources in factory, as well as intraclass variability and interclass similarity among different welding defects, it is difficult to extract the most discriminative defect features from welding molten pool images on site, resulting in weak class-imbalanced defect recognition performance. To address the above issue, a novel lightweight network named EfficientNet-ECA is proposed for recognizing and classifying welding defects according to molten pool images of robot arc welding. Firstly, the EfficientNet-ECA network based on Efficient Channel Attention (ECA) is designed to extract the most discriminative features of different defects from molten pool images, where ECA is employed to enhance cross-channel information interactions. Secondly, a dynamic equalized focal loss function is proposed to both rebalance the loss contribution of class-imbalanced data of different defects and improve defects recognition accuracy. Subsequently, a class-imbalanced dataset containing eight typical welding defects is constructed to evaluate the EfficientNet-ECA model. Finally, the proposed model is comprehensively analyzed through ablation studies and compared with the existing state-of-the-art lightweight models, and results show that the proposed method exhibits better effectiveness and generalizability in classifying class-imbalanced defects across different welding scenarios, achieving the highest accuracy of 95.84% on a self-constructed AL5083 dataset and 96.50% on a publicly available SS304 dataset. Moreover, with fewer parameters and less complexity, the proposed method is more suitable for online welding quality monitoring in factory.

Vision-based algorithm for online TIG welding deviation detection of stainless steel welded pipes

Tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding is the main welding process in the production of stainless steel welded pipe. According to the morphological characteristics of the welding molten pool image during the TIG welding process of stainless steel welded pipes, the exact position of the tungsten needle tip is calculated using image moments. Extract the weld region in the contour of the molten pool, interpolate the contour curve based on the cubic B-spline curve interpolation method, utilize the characteristics of the S-G filter, remove the interference coordinates in the contour curve through the detrending of the contour curve, extract the weld feature points, and realize the accurate identification of weld seams. The experimental results show that the method can accurately calculate the welding deviation in the welding process.

Numerical Analysis of Thermal Flow Dynamics of Arc Plasma and Molten Pool in Hollow Cathode Arc Welding with Oxygen Content

The mechanism of the pulsed hollow cathode arc welding (HCAW) process was revealed using a fully coupled model with a hollow cathode. We solved the governing equations with the Marangoni effect to study the dynamic behaviors of a molten pool with a square pulsing current (200~400 A, 900 Hz) and varying O2 content; the dynamics of the arc plasma and the weld pool in the HCAW process were investigated quantitatively. The results show that the intensity of the arc plasma was more significantly weakened by the design of the hollow cathode in HCAW than that in GTAW with a solid hollow cathode. We could obtain a stable molten pool even with a large pulsing current section (200 A–400 A) at higher frequencies. The flow dynamics of the molten pool were mainly dominated by the Marangoni effect with varying oxygen content, and we could promote penetration by increasing O2 content in HCAW.

The effects of laser welding parameters on weldability and quality of the microstructure of additively manufactured Inconel 718-316L joints

Additive manufacturing of metals is a way of producing high-quality end-use parts. Technical alloys, for example Inconel 718, can be used to obtain a lot of benefits for example wear, corrosion, and heat resistance. Laser welding of Inconel 718 is a standard process, but there is rather limited amount of information of welding of additively manufactured nickel superalloys to the additively manufactured stainless steel. The process parameters need to be considered in laser welding. Undesired microstructure can occur due to wrong heat input during the welding process. This study examines laser welding of additively manufactured Inconel 718-316L parts and the effects of the welding parameters to the quality of the weld by analysing microstructure from the heat affected zone. This is done to achieve better part quality more cost efficiently compared to traditionally produced parts and to optimize the welding parameters. It is not feasible to manufacture the full large structure with IN718 and AM could be used to manufacture just the functional parts of the assembly. Tests have shown that welding heat input and cooling time affect to the quality. Inconel 718 hardness decrease across the fused zone because of the mixing of different elements in the molten weld pool. Laser welding highlights cuboidal shaped niobium rich carbides throughout the material to the heat affected zone grain boundaries on Inconel side.

Stability mechanism of the molten pool in variable polarity plasma arc welding of medium thickness aluminum alloy

Stability mechanism of the molten pool in variable polarity plasma arc welding of medium thickness aluminum alloy

Effect of workpiece vibration frequency on heat distribution and material flow in the molten pool in tandem-pulsed gas metal arc welding

Effect of workpiece vibration frequency on heat distribution and material flow in the molten pool in tandem-pulsed gas metal arc welding

Monitoring of thermo-cycles in fibre laser welding of duplex stainless steel 2205 sheets and its correlation with microstructures and mechanical properties

The study reports the influence of change in the heat supplied (43 J mm−1 to 18.5 J mm−1) on the microstructures as well as mechanical properties of weld joints obtained by welding of Duplex stainless steel 2205 using fibre laser. In-process thermal monitoring of the molten weld pool was carried out using IR pyrometer. Cooling rates (i.e. solidification and solid) were calculated from the thermo-profiles of weld pool, and it increases with the decrease in heat input. From the optical images, it is observed that columnar grains originated from the fusion zone walls and merged at the center. Since, solidification front velocity is comparable on both sides’ leads to a central edge. Ferrite phase content observed in fusion zone microstructure, increases with the increase in solid cooling rate. The result suggests that the joints fabricated at lowest heat input displayed highest tensile strength. The maximum tensile strength been reported to be 872.5 ± 10.8 MPa, and failure occurred at parent metal. Tensile strength of weld joints of DSS 2205 was found to have improved with increasing cooling rate. Higher cooling rate results in the formation of fine dendritic grains as well as higher ferrite content in the weld metal.

The wetting and stirring behavior of molten pool in narrow gap AMF-GTAW by numerical and experimental analysis

The gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) molten pool are numerical and experimentally determined to be wetting and stirring with an extra transverse alternating magnetic field (ETAMF). The trace particle behaviors in the molten pool were identified to demonstrate molten pool flow behavior with the use of a camera system in the GTAW process. Taking advantage of mathematical models, we present the calculated results of temperature fields, flow fields, pressure fields with and without ETAMF for comparison. The result revealed that reduction of the solid/liquid surface tension attributed to the periodic heating of the side walls facilitates the wetting and flow of the molten pool's edge, which takes on a critical significance to the formation of a concave liquid level in a narrow gap. Arc pressure, Lorentz force and arc shear force primarily accounted for the molten pool's flow and morphological change. As the arc deflected to one side wall, the liquid melt accumulated at the bottom of the side under the driving forces, accompanied by wetting and flow behavior. At equilibrium, the molten pool flowed outward the center of the anode point and eventually converged to the bottom of the other side wall. The variation of the arc deflection direction broke the previous equilibrium state, and the molten pool's flow direction is forced to change, resulting in a stirring effect.

Numerical simulation and experiment for the dynamic behavior of molten pool in ultrasonic-assisted MIG welding

A three-dimensional (3D) transient numerical model that considers droplet impact, liquid metal oscillation, and dynamic variations in arc pressure is developed to explore the effect of ultrasonic waves on the behavior of molten pools in ultrasonic-assisted metal inert gas welding (U-MIG). The heat transfer and fluid flow of the U-MIG welding pool and the keyhole forming process are numerically simulated. The thermal field and flow field in the hybrid weld pool, as well as the form and size of the molten pool, were quantitatively analyzed. Simultaneously, the effect of ultrasonic on the welding pool is investigated by comparing it to the conventional metal inert gas welding (MIG) pool. The simulation results closely match the experimental results, verifying the model's validity and the accuracy of the relevant conclusions. This investigation defines the effect of ultrasonic on the temperature field and fluid flow of the U-MIG welding pool, and it sets the foundation for optimizing and applying the ultrasonic hybrid welding process.

Effects of Flowrate of Additional Shielding Gas on the Properties of Welded Seam Using Twin-Wire GMAW Welding for Duplex Stainless Steel

Aiming to diminish the defects caused by high-speed pulsed GMAW (Gas Metal Arc Welding), such as lack of penetration, lack of fusion, humping and undercut, this paper proposes an improved twin-wire GMAW welding process by introducing the impact of additional shielding gas on the molten pool, and the effects of different shielding gas flowrates on the mechanical properties and microstructure of the welded seams were investigated. The purpose of introducing additional shielding gas was to use the airflow hood formed by gas injection to isolate air. The impact force generated by the jet might change the original natural solidification mode of the molten pool, which had the effect of improving weld formation and stirring the pool. The airflow hood formed during the process of the additional shielding gas jet impact welding of the molten pool might extend the protection time for the surface of the welding molten pool. The 2205 duplex stainless steel plate was used as the base material for the butt welding test, and the welded seams were subjected to a tensile test, hardness analysis, and metallographic analysis. The results indicated that as the flowrate of additional shielding gas increased in the range of 8 L/min~16 L/min, the width of the welded seam increased and the height of reinforcement decreased gradually. However, a weld seam with a lower middle region and higher sides would appear when the gas flowrate became excessively large. Under the identical welding current and for welding speeds of 160 cm/min, 180 cm/min and 200 cm/min, respectively, the joint formed under the flowrate of 12 L/min had the highest tensile strength (824.3 MPa) among the test specimens under different flowrates of 8 L/min, 12 L/min and 16 L/min. The test results indicated that the jet impact force was relatively moderate when the flowrate of the additional shielding gas was 12 L/min, and thus was optimal for the welded seam.

Research on mapping recognition of arc welding molten pool characterisation and penetration state based on embedded system

AbstractIn order to explore the mapping recognition of arc welding molten pool characterisation and penetration state, according to the idea of embedded system construction, this article adopts the idea of software and hardware co‐design to find the zero‐crossing point of the second derivative in welding image edge detection, and give a threshold. When the absolute value of the first‐order derivative exceeds the threshold and has a different sign with the first‐order derivative of the previous edge, it is judged as a valid edge. The welding current adopts a symmetrical pulsed AC square wave, and the proportion of heat flow input is high. At the base current, the arc light is darker, so a clear image is obtained. This article designs a simulation experiment to verify the effect of the embedded system in this article. From the experimental research, it can be known that the embedded system constructed in this article can play a certain role in the mapping recognition of the arc welding molten pool characterisation and penetration state.

Numerical analysis of coupling dynamics of keyhole and molten pool in vertical-up laser mirror welding of 2219 aluminum alloy

In vertical-up laser mirror welding, the keyhole dynamics and flow behavior of molten pool play crucial roles in weld quality, yet the mechanisms of these coupling dynamics have not been well clarified. In this work, a three-dimensional transient model for simulation of vertical-up laser mirror welding process was carried out to account for the flow behavior of molten pool and dynamic evolution characteristics of keyhole. Two laser heat sources with regard to laser mirror welding were also taken into consideration in the combined heat source model. It is proved that the simulation results are basically consistent with the experimental data. The simulation results indicate that the morphology and flow field distribution of upper and lower molten pool both exhibit a high degree of consistency on the X–Y section, while significant difference is visible on the X-Z section. Before keyhole coupling, the high velocity fluid exists on the surface of molten pool and tends to increase the diameter of keyhole, of which the maximum velocity reaches 5.26 m s−1. During the keyhole coupling process, the coupled keyhole in the center area is found to fall, which results in deteriorated coupling process. Force analysis of keyhole illustrates that the resultant force on the X–Y section points to the direction of increasing the depth and diameter of keyhole before and during the keyhole coupling process. In contrast, the resultant force on the X-Z section is conductive to keyhole coupling occurring at the lower position. After keyhole coupling, the diameter of coupled keyhole in the center zone is increased and the fluid velocity is reduced to 0.109 m s−1, contributing to a firm connection.

The Analysis of Energy Distribution Characteristics of Molten Pool in Welding of Aluminum Alloy with Oscillating Laser

The energy distribution in molten pool is highly related to the quality of the weld formation in aluminum alloy welding. The forming defects in the weld are often improved by adjusting the molten pool dynamic behaviors affected by energy distribution. Therefore, the energy distribution characteristics in the molten pool during the welding of aluminum alloy with oscillating laser in the “∞” shaped path are explored in this paper. The pore defects are found to be greatly reduced in welds from the oscillating laser welding of aluminum alloy compared to those from non-oscillating laser welding. The corresponding distribution characteristics of energy in the molten pool of welding with oscillating laser are obtained and analyzed. The dynamic behaviors and forming process of welds under welding conditions of different distribution characteristics of energy in the molten pool are discussed. The obtained results are in good agreement with the experimental results. Therefore, the proposed method can provide the desired energy distribution for stable dynamic behaviors of molten pool to improve welding quality.

In-process phased array ultrasonic weld pool monitoring

In recent years, there have been increasing economic and industrial drivers for the development of real-time non-destructive evaluation directly at the point of manufacture. Real-time inspection and monitoring of welding processes can help to reduce fabrication costs by detecting defects as they occur, enabling more efficient and cost-effective builds. This paper shows, for the first time, the use of phased array ultrasonics to monitor and analyse the molten weld pool during deposition of multi-pass gas tungsten arc welds. The received ultrasonic signals are shown to contain information related to key physical transitions occurring within the welding process, namely the melting and solidification of the weldment. Furthermore, the technique used here is shown to be effective for determining weld quality in real-time with significant signal changes occurring when defects such as Lack of Root Penetration are present. The accurate focusing and steering capabilities offered by phased arrays are used to successfully isolate the molten weld pool from the surrounding solidified weldment during deposition of multiple layers of a multi-pass weld.

Quantifying the effects of gap on the molten pool and porosity formation in laser butt welding

To obtain a better joint quality in butt welding of aluminum, the gap filling process and the quantification of the gap effects on the molten pool characteristic and the bubble formation were realized by a three-dimensional thermal-mechanistic-fluid coupled model, with the consideration of heat transfer, fluid flow, phase change and recoil pressure. The model was validated by the synchrotron-radiation result. The competition between the solidification and melting at the bottom of the molten pool was uncovered to determine the gap filling process and the molten pool morphology. Gap increased the heat loss, and the molten pool tip was elongated due to gap filling. Four phenomena appeared in sequence in the initial stage of butt welding: I. Gap filling; II. Frozen; III. Remelt; IV. Bubble formation. The result also demonstrated that the gap would disturb the molten pool. In the initial stable growth stage of the molten pool, the larger the gap width, the greater the molten pool depth. The sharp change of keyhole depth was due to the necking formation, while the small fluctuation of keyhole depth with larger gap values resulted from the perturbation by the gap. Bubble formation depends on the degree of the fluid flow and the gap filling due to the unique fluid dropping down phenomenon of butt welding with gap. A continuous melt pool cannot be formed when the gap width beyond 20 μm, which is detrimental to the welding quality. These findings are of great significance for guiding the optimization of butt-welding process, such as reducing the roughness of the butt interface or increasing the clamping force to reduce the butt gap.