Laser welding of AA 5083 samples by high power diode laser

Abstract

Laser welding is a very attractive technique to join different alloys at the industrial level, due to Its low heat input, high flexibility, high weld quality and high production rate. In this work, the weldability of the aluminium alloy AA 5083 with a high power diode laser has been tested. Concisely, samples were subjected to lineal treatments of laser radiation, with the objective of studying the properties of the bead on plate welds generated. The main objective of the present work has been to study the influence of both the processing rate and the superficial treatment of the AA 5083 samples, on the morphological, microstructural and corrosion properties of the laser weld beads. The sizes of the welds were higher as the processing rate was decreased. The weld beads were seen to have better behaviour against corrosion than the base metal due to the microstructural refinement. It was also verified that a blasting process before processing gave beads with lower size but better corrosion resistance than the application of a black layer, due to the minimisation of the magnesium evaporation In this former superficial treatment. © 2008 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.