Linear Elastic FE-Analysis of Porous, Laser Welded, Heat Treatable, Aluminium High Pressure Die Castings Based on X-Ray Computed Tomography Data

The welding of aluminium high pressure die castings is a well known and broadly investigated challenge in various fields of industry and research. Prior research in this specific field mainly focused on the optimisation of the welding and the casting process and on the cause of the frequently occurring porosity and incomplete fusion phenomena, whereas the impacts of these defects have hardly been addressed. Therefore, the underlying study presents the investigation of weldments in EN AC-AlSi10MnMg high pressure aluminium die castings by linear elastic finite element analysis based on X-ray computed tomography as a novel approach. Hereby, four laser weldments with differing surfaces and pore contents were investigated by X-ray computed tomography and tensile testing. Based on the voxel datasets of the porous weldments, triangular finite element meshes were generated and a numerical finite element analysis was conducted. Good agreement of the stress-strain curves between the simulations and the experiments was achieved.