Analysis of temperature and associated cooling rates that arise during welding is essential in deciding the final mechanical properties of the workpiece. The paper describes the computational analysis of the laser welding process for a sample AISI-316 steel. The objective was to study the temperature distribution around the heat affected zone (HAZ) and the associated cooling rates during laser welding process. The differential equation for heat conduction is solved computationally by Finite Element Method for convective boundary conditions. The temperature distribution and cooling rates were found for a thin plate undergoing laser welding process using rectangular and triangular elements (i-e, Q4, Q8 and T3, T6). The Gaussian Elimination Method is used to solve the system of algebraic equations while the Crank-Nicolson Method is used to solve the time-integration scheme. Influence of various parameters such as laser beam velocity and laser heat input have been analyzed.

Topics
Thermodynamic states and processes, Welding, Finite difference methods, Finite-element analysis
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© 1996 Laser Institute of America.
1996
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