Laser welding of metals and alloys is extensively used in industry due to its advantages of controlled heating, narrow weld bead, low heat affected zone (HAZ) and its ability to weld a wide range of metals and dissimilar metals. Laser welding of dissimilar metals such as carbon steels and stainless steel is still a challenging task, particularly due to the formation of brittle phases in the weld, martensitic formation in the HAZ and solidification cracking in the fusion zone. These issues can significantly deteriorate the strength of the welded joint. The aim of this work is to investigate the fundamental phenomena that occur inside the dissimilar weld zone and their effect on weld quality. In order to establish the key process variables, an initial study concentrated on the effect of different laser process parameters on dissimilar weld quality. In the second part of the work, a comprehensive study was performed to understand and subsequently control the alloying composition in laser dissimilar welding of austenitic stainless steel and low carbon steel. A dissimilar weld that is predominantly austenitic and homogeneous was obtained by controlling the melt pool dynamics through specific point energy and beam alignment. The significance of dilution and alloying elements on joint strength was established. A coupled CFD and FEM numerical model was developed to assist in understanding the melt pool dynamics and transportation processes of alloying elements. The model has been validated by a series of laser welding experiments using various levels of specific point energy. The laser welding characteristics in terms of geometric dimensions, surface morphology, alloying concentration, and dilution, were compared, and it is concluded that the specific point energy and laser beam position are the key parameters that can be controlled to obtain a weld bead with characteristics most suitable for industrial applications. In the third part of the work, a comparative study was performed to understand the significance of cooling rate, and alloying composition on the microstructure and phase structure of the dissimilar weld zone. Results show that the HAZ within the high carbon steel has significantly higher hardness than the weld area, which severely undermines the weld quality. A new heat treatment strategy was proposed based on the results of the numerical simulation, and it is shown to control the brittle phase formation in HAZ of high carbon steel. A series of experiments was performed to verify the developed thermo-metallurgical FEA model and a good qualitative agreement of the predicted martensitic phase distribution is shown to exist. Although this work is presented in the context of dissimilar laser welding of mild steel to stainless steel, the concept is applicable to any dissimilar fusion welding process.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:677709 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Nekouie Esfahani, Mohammadreza |
| Publisher | Loughborough University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/19760 |
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