Modeling of heat transfer and fluid flow during laser welding of aluminum

This paper presents a two-dimensional model to study the fluid flow and heat transfer phenomena which occur during deep penetration laser welding. Using finite volume method analysis software FLUENT, behavior of temperature field and weld pool shape were analyzed. The results show that the method can be used to predict the shape of the welding pool as function of welding parameters and that the widths of both the fusion zone and heat effected zone decrease as the welding speed increases.