Modeling of Heat Transfer and Transport Phenomena During Laser Welding Of Aluminum/Magnesium Alloys

The weld geometry is an important factor which determines the quality of the weld. This work proposes a transitional and three-dimensional numerical model performed by the hydrodynamic software Ansys-Fluent. We are interested in the heterogeneous assembly of Al alloy and Mg alloy by laser beam welding. Aluminum and Magnesium plates are joined in butt configuration. The objective of this work is to simulate the temperature field, velocity field, fluid flow during the interaction between the laser beam and the material and to predict the dimensional characteristics of the laser welded joint. This makes it possible to better understand different physical phenomena (e.g. heat transfer, mass transport) generated in the molten pool. The results show that the simulated weld bead profile is in good agreement with those obtained by experiment.