Papers by Keyword: Lap Welding

Abstract: Precipitation-hardenable 6xxx series aluminum alloys are incorporated in many structural components with due consideration of their good combination of properties including a relatively high strength, outstanding extrudability and excellent corrosion resistance. Accordingly, AA6061 has been identified as a very good candidate material for structural lightweighting of transportation vehicles. However, the weldability of aluminum alloy (AA) 6061 by means of conventional technologies such as GMAW and GTAW methods is limited by sensitivity to solidification cracking. In this respect, friction stir welding (FSW) presents a tremendous potential for assembly of aluminum structures for the transportation industry due to the low heat involved that can mitigate crack formation and, thus, translate into improved mechanical performance of the assembly. In this work, FSW of 3.18 mm thick AA6061-T6 sheets in the lap joint configuration was investigated. This configuration is considered to be more challenging for assembly by FSW than the butt joint type due to the orientation of the interface with respect to the welding tools and the necessity to break the oxide layer on two aluminium alloy planar surfaces. Weld trials were performed to examine the influence of the FSW tool geometry and process parameters on the welding defects, microstructure, hardness and bend performance. Unacceptable material expulsion and/or significant thinning in one of the two overlapped sheets were produced under most conditions. A set of FSW tool geometries leading to a viable process operational window under which the risk of defects could be mitigated and/or eliminated was identified in this study.

Abstract: The weld bead temperature distribution and shape during pulsed Nd:YAG laser lap welding are studied. A volumetric heat source model is derived to include the surface flux and the keyhole heat transfer effects in the pulsed laser lap welding process. The proposed pulsed laser heat transfer mode is employed in a simulation with the commercial finite element software Marc. The numerically computed results of the weld pool dimensions are compared with the experimental results. The comparison shows a good agreement between the simulated and measurement results, indicating that the proposed model is feasible. The results reveal that the pulse duration and spot pitch have considerable influence on the temperature field distribution and the residual stress distribution.

Abstract: In laser welding, the heat input per unit length is determined by the welding speed and the laser output power. Along with these parameters, there are several other important parameters such as the shielding gas composition, shielding gas flow rate, beam angle, defocusing distance, and so forth. In this paper, the effect of each process parameter on the welding quality was investigated to establish a laser lap welding process for Al sheets. Al 5J32 and Al 6K32 sheets were used as the base metal, and a 4kW disk laser was used as a high brightness laser power source. The bead appearance, the cross-sectional bead shape, X-ray images, and the weight of spatters were examined to evaluate the welding quality.

Abstract: The application of laser welding technology has been considered to shipbuilding structure. However, when this technology is applied to primer-coated steel, good quality weld beads are not easily obtained. Because the primer-coated layer caused the spatter, humping bead and porosity which are main part of the welding defect attributed to the powerful vaporizing pressure of zinc. So we performed experiment with objectives of understanding spatter and porosity formation mechanism and producing sound weld beads in 6
t primer coated steels by a CO2 CW laser. The effects of welding parameters; defocused distance, welding speed, coated thickness and coated position; were investigated in the bead shape and penetration depth on bead and lap welding. Alternative idea was suggested to suspend the welding defect by giving a reasonable gap clearance for primer coated thickness. The zinc of primer has a boiling point that is lower than melting point of steel. Zinc vapor builds up at the interface between the two sheets and this tends to deteriorate the quality of the weld by ejecting weld material from lap position or leaving porosity. Significant effects of primer coated position were lap side rather than surface. Therefore introducing a small gap clearance in the lap position, the zinc vapor could escape through it and sound weld beads can be acquired. In conclusion, formation and suspension mechanism of the welding defects was suggested by controlling the factors.