Characteristic of laser-MIG hybrid welding with filling additional cold wire for aluminum alloy

The weld appearance, deposition rate, welding efficiency, stability of arc, laser keyhole characteristic, and weld property were studied by using a novel laser-MIG hybrid welding process with filling wire of aluminum alloy. The results were also compared with those by conventional laser-MIG hybrid welding process. It was found that with the suitable process parameters this novel welding process for aluminum alloy was stable and final weld bead had fine appearance. Compared to conventional laser-MIG hybrid welding process, during this novel welding process the stability of arc, the laser keyhole characteristic and the weld property were similar, while the keyhole cycle frequency and keyhole opening area had differences of 1.23% and 15.34%, respectively, and the welding efficiency increased by about 31% without increasing heat input.

Status and development trend of the welding consumables industry in China

We analyzed the status and development of the welding consumables industry in China during the 12th Five-Year Plan （2011 -2015） period, and identified the major problems in the industry. We predicted the development trends that are expected for the ／3th Five-Year Plan （2016 -2020） period. We suggest some specific countermeasures and practices, which the Chinese welding industry should accelerate the transformation-upgrading and coordinated development of the industry and its firms , should work on improving their overall quality to improve the brand,s influence, enlarge their input into research and technology upgrading,and develop a low-carbon green production mode that could be put in place to promote the development of the Chinese welding consumables industry.

Acquisition and processing of coaxial image of molten pool and keyhole in Nd:YAG laser welding with high power

An experimental setup of acquiring the coaxial visual image of the molten pool and keyhole in high power Nd:YAG laser welding is introduced in this paper. It is one of the most difficult problems in acquiring coaxial image that the coaxial imaging signal of molten pool and keyhole must be separated from the laser beam with high power. This problem was resolved by designing a dichroitic spectroscope. The characteristics of imaging signal were analyzed and the coaxial image of molten pool and keyhole was acquired. A smoothing filter and a homomorphic filter were designed to remove the low frequency noise and to enhance the image according to the characteristics of imaging signal. At last, edges of molten pool and keyhole were detected and extracted based on image segmentation with threshold.

Numerical analysis of thermal process in continuous drive radial friction welding

A heat source model for radial friction welding was proposed, which was determined by friction pressure, friction coefficient, material properties and extrusion speed of material. A 3D model was established to analyze the continuous drive radial friction welding temperature field of 45 steel pipe. The influences of friction pressure, friction time and rotation speed on the temperature of the friction interface were analyzed. The results showed that the temperature on the friction interface rapidly rose to a peak temperature in initial friction stage and kept constant in the stable friction stage. Welding parameters of friction pressure, friction time and rotation speed had few influences on the peak temperature, while the increase of frlctlon pressure and rotation speed could shorten the time to reach the peak temperature.

Correlation between laser-wire distance and Nd：YAG laser ＋ P-GMA hybrid welding heat input parameters

In laser ＋ P-GMA hybrid welding, laser-wire distance is an important parameter to describe the distance from laser spot to the center of the pulsed gas metal arc. The experiments results show that the optimal laser-wire distance with the deepest weld penetration increases with welding current and laser power being increased and decreases with welding speed being increased. Welding current, laser power and welding speed determine the hybrid welding heat input in laser ＋ arc hybrid welding process, so there is a correlation between the optimal laser-wire distanee and the hybrid heat input welding parameters for the deepest weld penetration： the optimal laser-wire distance increases with the heat input being increased. The positive correlation between the optimal laser-wire distance and the hybrid welding heat input is induced by the characteristics of the limited influence of P-GMA welding process on laser transmission and the dependence of weld penetration of hybrid welding on laser power.

Effects of fluxes with single component on weld depth in A-TIG welding of magnesium alloy

The effects of fluxes with single component on weld penetration depth in TIG welding of magnesium alloy were investigated. Seven kinds of halides were selected as the activating flux in the experiments. The effects of coating quantity of these fluxes on weld depth-to-width ratio were also studied. The results show that all of the selected halides can increase the weld depth under the same welding conditions compared with conventional TIG welding. The increase of penetration is different for the fluxes with different component. Among them, the flux of CdCl2 is the best, which can increase up to 334% of weld depth compared with the conventional TIG welding.

Laser-pulsed MIG hybrid welding technology of A6N01S aluminum alloy

Welding research of A6N01S-T5 aluminum alloy profile for high-speed train was done by using laser-MIG hybrid welding and MIG welding individually. And the weld appearance,welding distortion,mechanical properties of the joints and microstructures were analyzed. The test results demonstrated that high-efficient welding for the profile can be achieved by using laser-MIG hybrid welding,the speed of which can be over 3. 0 m/min. The processing had a good gap bridging ability,even if the gap of the butt joint was up to 2. 0 mm,a good weld appearance can also be got. While the hybrid welding speed was greater than 2. 5 m/min,the welding distortion of the laser-tandem MIG hybrid joints was just about 33% of that of the MIG joints,but the welding efficiency was over 3 times of MIG welding. And tensile strength of the hybrid joints was 85% of that of A6N01S-T5 base metal,9% higher than that of the MIG joints. Fatigue properties was tested individually with pulsed tensile fatigue method in the condition of 1 × 10~7 lifetime. The test results demonstrated that the fatigue strength of the joints was a little lower than that of base material,which could be up to 115 MPa. But the fatigue strength of hybrid welding joints was 107. 5 MPa,which was 23% higher than 87 MPa of MIG welding joints.

Equivalent Activity Coefficient Phenomenon of Cerium Reacting with Lead or Bismuth in Ag, Cu and Zn Alloy

The relation between contents of cerium and impurity lead or bismuth to their activity coefficient in Ag, Cu and Zn-base alloy was calculated and analyzed by using the ternary system Chou model. The thermodynamic calculation results show that the 'equivalent activity coefficient phenomenon' emerges among the activity coefficient of solute in a certain range of cerium (or at a certain point) for the Ce-Pb-X and Ce-Bi-X (X=Ag, Cu or Zn) ternary alloy system. Under this condition, the activity coefficient of solute has nothing to do with its own concentration. The preliminary theoretical analysis to this phenomenon was also made.

Microstructure and mechanical properties of twin-wire arc sprayed Ni-Al composite coatings on 6061-T6 aluminum alloy sheet

We have systematically studied the microstructure and mechanical properties of Ni-5wt%Al and Ni-20wt%Al composite coat- ings fabricated on 6061-T6 aluminum alloy sheet by twin-wire arc spraying under different experimental conditions. The abrasive wear be- havior and interface diffusion behavior of the composite coatings were evaluated by dry/wet rubber wheel abrasive wear tests and heat treat- ment, respectively. Experimental results indicate that the composite coatings exhibit features of adhesive wear. Besides, the Vickers micro- hardness of NiA1 and Ni3AI intermetallic compounds is relatively larger than that of the substrate, which is beneficial for enhancing the wear resistance. With the increase of annealing temperature and time, the interface diffusion area between the Ni-Al coating and the substrate gradually expands with the formation of NiAl3 and Ni2Al3 phases, and is controlled by diffusion of aluminum atoms. The grain growth ex- ponent n of diffusion kinetics of the Ni-Al coating, calculated via a high-temperature diffusion model at 400, 480, and 550℃, is between 0.28 and 0.38. This satisfies the cubic law, which is consistent with the general theoretical relationship of high-temperature diffusion.

Analysis of the Microstructure and Mechanical Properties during Inertia Friction Welding of the Near-α TA19 Titanium Alloy

The current research of titanium alloy on friction welding process in the field of aero-engines mainly focuses on the linear friction welding.Compared to the linear friction welding,inertial friction welding of titanium alloy still has important application position in the welding of aero-engine rotating assembly.However,up to now,few reports on inertial friction welding of titanium alloy are found.In this paper,the near-alpha TA19 titanium alloy welded joint was successfully obtained by inertial friction welding(IFW)process.The microstructures and mechanical properties were investigated systematically.Results showed that the refined grains within 15‒20μm and weak texture were found in the weld zone due to dynamic recrystallization caused by high temperature and plastic deformation.The weld zone consisted of acicularα′martensite phase,αp phase and metastableβphase.Most lath-shapedαs andβphase in base metal were transformed into acicular martensiteα′phase and metastableβphase in thermo-mechanically affected zone and heat affected zone.As a result,the microhardness of welded joint gradually decreased from the weld zone to the base metal.Tensile specimens in room temperature and high temperature of 480℃ were all fractured in base metal illustrating that the inertia friction welded TA19 titanium alloy joint owned higher tensile strength compared to the base metal.

Three dimensional numerical simulation of welding temperature fields in stainless steel

Three kinds of mathematical models representing welding heat sources are presented. Among them, Gaussian model and double ellipsoidal model are used to analyze the thermal distributions with finite element method. At the same time, this paper analyzed the influences of the heat source models, the latent heat and the welding parameters on the temperature distributions. The comparisons between the simulated results and the experiments show double ellipsoidal model is good for three-dimensional numerical simulations. Furthermore, the adaptive mesh technique is applied in the three-dimensional model which greatly reduces the number of nodes and elements in the simulation.

Effect of welding heat input on HAZ character in ultra-fine grain steel welding

In this essay, we studied how heat input affected the microstructure, hardness, grain size and heat-affected zone(HAZ) dimension of WCX355 ultra-fine grain steel which was welded respectively by the ultra narrow-gap welding (UNGW) process and the overlaying process with CO 2 as protective atmosphere and laser welding process. The experimental results show when the heat input changed from 1.65 kJ/cm to 5.93 kJ/cm, the width of its HAZ ranged from 0.6 mm to 2.1 mm.The average grain size grew up from 2～5 μm of base metal to 20～70 μm and found no obvious soften phenomenon in overheated zone. The width of normalized zone was generally wide as 2/3 as that of the whole HAZ, and the grain size in this zone is smaller than that in base metal. Under the circumstance of equal heat input, the HAZ width of UNGW is narrower than that of the laser welding.

Low temperature bonding of LD31 aluminum alloys by electric brush plating Ni and Cu coatings

Soldering of LD31 aluminum alloys using Sn-Pb solder paste after electric brush plating Ni and Cu coatings was investigated. The technology of electric brush plating Ni and Cu was studied and plating solution was developed. The microstructure of the coatings, soldered joint and fracture face were analyzed using optic microscopy, SEM and EDX. The shear strength of soldered joint could reach as high as 26.83MPa. The results showed that reliable soldered joint could be obtained at 230℃, the adhesion of coatings and LD31 aluminum alloy substrate was high enough to bear the thermal process in the soldering.

Microstructure and mechanical properties of twin-wire arc spraying Ni-Swt.% AI coating on 6061-T6 aluminum alloy

Thermal sprayed Ni-5wt.% Al coating was fabricated on the substrate of 6061-T6 aluminum alloy by twin-wire arc spraying. Experimental results indicated that the average value of bond strength was around 46. 90 MPa, the average hardness was 240 HV and the average value of surface roughness was about O. 14 mm. Friction and wear test results showed that the dry friction coefficient of Ni-5wt.% Al coating firstly decreased, and then tended to a slight increase after 200 cycles. In the early abrasion stage, adhesion wear played the key role for wear mechanics of Ni-5wt.% Al coating, but gradually abrasive wear became to replace adhesion wear.

Three thermal analysis models for laser, GMAW-P and Iaser＋GMAW-P hybrid welding

The temperature fields and the weld pool geometries for laser ＋ GMAW-P hybrid welding, laser welding and pulsed gas metal arc welding （GMAW-P） are numerically simulated in quasi-steady state by using the developed heat source models, respectively. The calculated weld cross-sectious of the three types of welding processes agree well with their respective measured results. Through comparison, it is found that the temperature distribution of laser＋GMAW-P hybrid welding possesses the advantages of those in both laser and GMAW-P welding processes so that the improvement of welding productivity and weld quality are ensured.

Critical power of keyhole formation in CW Nd:YAG laser deep penetration welding

The energy model was founded to calculate the critical power of keyhole formation by using the limit principle in CW （ continuous wave ） Nd： YAG laser deep penetration welding process. The model was validated by experiments. The results show that ＇.there are two errors between the calculated critical power of keyhole formation and that of experiments ： one is that the calculated results is less than those of experiments, which is caused by not considering the energy loss by heat conduction in the model of keyhole formation. The other is that there is 0. 9 mm error between the axis of the calculated curve of critical power with location of laser focus and that of experimental curve, which is induced by the excursion of laser focus in laser deep penetration welding. At last, the two errors were revised according to the analyses of the errors.

Keyhole formation and its characteristics in laser welding mode transition

Keyhole is the most important characteristic for laser deep penetration welding, and its formation indicates the beginning of laser deep penetration welding mode. The keyhole developing process was analyzed and the keyhole formation time was calculated according to welding speed and the length of weld bead formed in the keyhole formation process. The results showed that the keyhole forms in 40 -70 ms at different rate of change of laser power. In laser deep penetration welding process, the variation of light intensity radiated by laser induced plasma can identify the keyhole formation, but it can not be used to estimate the keyhole formation time because of delay effect.

Microstructure of Ni–Al powder and Ni–Al composite coatings prepared by twin-wire arc spraying

Ni–Al powder and Ni–Al composite coatings were fabricated by twin-wire arc spraying（TWAS）. The microstructures of Ni-5wt%Al powder and Ni-20wt%Al powder were characterized by scanning electronic microscopy（SEM） and energy dispersive spectroscopy（EDS）. The results showed that the obtained particle size ranged from 5 to 50 μm. The morphology of the Ni–Al powder showed that molten particles were composed of Ni solid solution, NiAl, Ni_3Al, Al_2O_3, and NiO. The Ni–Al phase and a small amount of Al_2O_3 particles changed the composition of the coating. The microstructures of the twin-wire-arc-sprayed Ni–Al composite coatings were characterized by SEM, EDS, X-ray diffraction（XRD）, and transmission electron microscopy（TEM）. The results showed that the main phase of the Ni-5wt%Al coating consisted of Ni solid solution and Ni Al in addition to a small amount of Al_2O_3. The main phase of the Ni-20wt%Al coating mainly consisted of Ni solid solution, Ni Al, and Ni_3Al in addition to a small amount of Al and Al_2O_3, and Ni Al and Ni_3Al intermetallic compounds effectively further improved the final wear property of the coatings. TEM analysis indicated that fine spherical NiAl_3 precipitates and a Ni–Al–O amorphous phase formed in the matrix of the Ni solid solution in the original state.

High specific strength MWCNTs/Mg-14Li-1Al composite prepared by electrophoretic deposition, friction stir processing and cold rolling

Multi-wall carbon nanotubes reinforced Mg-14Li-1Al composite(MWCNTs/Mg-14Li-1Al) was prepared by the processes of electrophoretic deposition, friction stir processing, and cold rolling. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the composite were investigated. The results show that, the microhardness of the composite is up to HV 84.4, which is 91.38% higher than that of the as-cast matrix alloy(HV 44.1). The yield strength and ultimate tensile strength of the composite are 259 and 313 MPa, which are 135.45% and 115.86% higher than those of the as-cast matrix alloy, respectively, and a high specific strength of 221.98 k N·m/kg is obtained. In the composite, the MWCNTs serve as nucleation particles during the friction stir processing and cold rolling, causing dynamic recrystallization and grain refinement. Furthermore, MWCNTs hinder the movement of dislocations and transfer the load from the matrix alloy, thus improving the strength.

Numerical analysis of temperature profile and weld dimensions in laser ＋ GMAW hybrid welding of aluminum alloy T-joint

The temperature fields in the transient state and weld dimensions in laser ＋ gas metal arc welding （GMAW） hybrid welding of aluminum alloy T-joint for different welding conditions were calculated using the developed heat source model, and the effect of welding speed on them was analyzed. The results show that the temperature field for the first weld pass only shows the feature of GMAW and the one for the second weld pass has the characteristics of both laser welding and GMAW. Welding speed can affect greatly weld dimensions and temperature distribution. When welding speed reaches 3.5 m/min, the fusion zones of two weld passes are separated and the maximum peak temperature of thermal cycle on the workpiece surface decreases largely.