Numerical study of melt flow and depth of HAZ in laser welding of titanium alloy plate Ti6Al4V

In this paper, temperature distribution, melt flow and depth of heat affected zone (HAZ) in LASER welding of Ti6A14V Titanium alloy platen of 1.7 mm thickness have been studied. Due to high costs of practical LASER welding experiments, finite volume method was employed to predict the weld behavior on the specimen. Simulation is an superior method in finding optimized settings which reduces the costs as well. Fluid finite volume method and Open Foam software were employed in simulation. In order to verify the simulation results, experimental data obtained from weld geometry and temperature distribution were used. Buoyancy and Marangoni forces and boussinesq assumptions, were considered intently in simulation process. Moreover, thermodynamic properties were assumed independent of temperature and Gaussian heat source was employed for mechanical properties. Numerical results have good agreement with experimental results. The developed model can predict temperature distribution, melt flow in different parts of plate and melt penetration depth properly. This model can also be used for design and evaluation of welded parts.