Laser Deep Penetration Welding of an Aluminum Alloy with Simultaneously Applied Vibrations

In aluminum welding, the grain structure of produced seams is an essential factor with respect to the seam properties. In the casting technology the effect of mechanical vibrations on the grain growth during the solidification of liquid metals is known as a refinement method. In this paper, the transferability of this approach from comparatively long-time processes in the field of casting to the short-time process of laser deep penetration welding is investigated. Therefore, specimens were sinusoidal vibrated with frequencies up to 4 kHz during bead-on-plate full-penetration welding experiments. The resulting grain size was determined by applying the circular intercept procedure on the center of a cross-section micrograph of each weld. The results show that grain refinement is in general achievable by mechanical vibrations in the audible frequency range during laser full penetration keyhole welding of the aluminum alloy EN AW-5083. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media New York.