Influence of oscillation parameters on energy distributions and dynamic behaviors during laser welding of aluminum alloy T-joints assisted with solder patch

The laser energy distribution on base material (BM) surface plays an important role in the welding quality. To reduce pore and spatter welding defects during laser welding of aluminum alloy T-joints, a circular shaped oscillating laser beam welding (OLBW) method for aluminum alloy T-joints assisted with solder patch is proposed in this paper. An energy distribution model and a dynamic model for OLBW of aluminum alloy T-joints assisted with solder patch are established to analyze the influence of oscillation parameters on energy distributions of BM surface and dynamic behaviors of molten pool and keyhole. The energy distribution characteristics are obtained by the energy distribution model and the dynamic behaviors of molten pool and keyhole are calculated by the dynamic model for OLBW of aluminum alloy T-joints assisted with solder patch. The results show that the uniformity of energy distribution is improved with the increase in oscillation amplitude or frequency. The oscillation parameters can be adopted to adjust the keyhole stability and the temperature distributions, flow velocities and morphologies of molten pool, which is of great importance for aluminum alloy T-joints welding with high quality. •An energy distribution model and a dynamic model are proposed.•The energy distribution characteristics are calculated.•The dynamic behaviors of molten pool and keyhole are analyzed.•The proposed models are efficient for reducing the welding defects.