Electron Beam Technologies
10.3 Electron Beam Welding of Dissimilar Joints with TWIP-Matrix Composites
10.3.2 Influence of Beam Parameters on the Weld Quality
During the welding experiments without beam displacement (x= 0 mm), the molten metal was periodically ejected (similar to the humping effect). This led to material loss and the formation of cavities (Fig.10.13a) in the welding seam, which is known from the similar welding joints (Sect.10.2.7).
With increasing beam displacement (up to 0.3 mm), material separations along the entire weld length, even reaching the weld face were observed. Moreover, pro- nounced cavity formation was visible (Fig.10.13b). From a beam offset of 0.4 mm (Fig.10.13c), the typical smoothly scaled upper bead and a microscopically flawless welding seam were obtained. Occasionally, the welding seam was widened, though material separation did not occur. In summary, the welding quality improved with decreasing amounts of Mg-PSZ within the weld pool.
An underfill was evident at a beam offset of 0.4 mm. Despite having the same bevel geometries, higher beam offsets (0.5–0.6 mm) did not result in underfill, but produced joints with the same scaling of upper beads (Fig.10.13d). In order to counteract the underfill, tests were carried out without machining a bevel on the samples, with these samples exhibiting a general reduction and, partly, a complete prevention of seam
Fig. 10.13 Influence of the beam offsetxon the weld quality (red: EG<‘D’, green: EG better than ‘D’);a–dlight optical cross sections,eschematic position of the welded materials. Beam parameters:IB= 45 mA,vs= 15 mm/s [15]
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0
10 20 30 40 50
vs=5 mm/s vs=15 mm/s vs=45 mm/s
Beam offset x [mm]
Dilution D [%]
0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4
Seam width bWS [mm]
bWS D
D (a)
(b)
Fig. 10.14 aResulting level of dilution (shown in bars, left axis) for different welding speeds as a function of the beam offset used. Datapoints mark the corresponding seam width (right axis).b Influence of the welding speedvsand the level of dilutionDon the weld quality with respect to the area of the transition zone (TZ) forx= 0.5 mm.vs= 5 mm/s:IB= 30 mA, EG = ‘C’,vs= 15 mm/s:
IB= 45 mA, EG = ‘D’,vs= 45 mm/s:IB= 110 mA, EG<‘D’ [15]
concavity. Further examinations were then carried out with a beam offset of 0.4 mm, and did not exhibit any underfill. For all tests without bevels, an upper bead was produced that was free of macroscopic faults. Even without a bevel, the welding gap could be located easily with the monitoring system of the EB facility.
The experiments had shown that the beam displacement was associated with characteristic defects in the welding seam. With the level of dilution (D), there was an additional characteristic value which acted as a measure for the ingress of the Mg-PSZ particles and the corresponding width of the mixing zone. In Fig.10.14a, the degrees of mixing for different welding speeds (5–45 mm/s) are plotted with the corresponding welding seam widths as a function of the beam offset used. As expected, the level of dilution decreased with increasing beam offset regardless of the welding speed. The defect-free welds with a beam offset of 0.4–0.6 mm corresponded to an ingress of <10% (Fig.10.14a). All samples with higher dilution exhibited pores, underfills or other significant defects. The standard deviations determined were also the smallest in the offset range for samples without defects (0.4–0.6 mm) and increased with decreasing beam offset. Consequently, the process stability increased with increasing beam displacement.
Based on the results of welding experiments at 15 mm/s, it could be deduced that starting from x= 0 mm, the welding seam width decreased with increasing beam offset up to a beam offset of 0.2 mm. This was due to the significantly lower thermal conductivity of the TWIP MMC compared to the austenitic AISI304 steel, which led to heat accumulation and, thus, to seam broadening. Above a beam off- set of 0.3 mm and with less than 28% dilution, the welding seam width remained approximately constant, which was due to the decreasing influence of TWIP MMC material. In addition, it was shown that there was no significant change in weld- ing seam width for welding speeds of 15–45 mm/s. On the other hand, welds with 5 mm/s exhibited an increase in welding seam width of≈35% compared to welds produced at 15 mm/s. The reason for this was the limited sample volume, which was discussed in Sect.10.2.6.1. Regardless of the set level of dilution, all welds carried out with a welding speed of 45 mm/s had significant defects. The micrographs in Fig.10.14b show that despite similar levels of dilution, there were significant dif- ferences in welding quality. The ingress of the Mg-PSZ particles was therefore not the only factor that impaired the weldability of TWIP Mg-PSZ. It became clear that despite similar energy inputs per unit length, pore-containing seams were produced at welding speeds of 45 mm/s, while pore-free joints could be welded at 15 mm/s.
At the same time, a higher energy input per unit length also led to an improvement in the quality of the welding seam. Therefore, it was not possible to identify any clear tendencies for the evaluation of the welding seam quality from the selected value of E. However, the influence of the welding speed on the quality of the welding seam was proven in this work. In contrast to the work of Chen et al. [10], improvement of the weld quality with increasing welding speed could not be found for the TWIP MMC used.
Thus, in the case of a very large beam offset (x= 0.6 mm), it was possible to change the seam geometry by lowering the welding speed tovs= 5 mm/s in such a way that almost parallel edges of the seam were created. This prevented connection faults in the root position area. Tests were carried out to select the optimum welding beam current at small beam offsets (x= 0.4 mm) and correspondingly high entries of Mg- PSZ (D≈12%) into the weld pool. It was observed that the minimal beam currents necessary for full-penetration welding often led to pore formation and connection errors in the root position. Raising the beam current by≈20% led to better melt degassing, on the one hand, and to more parallel weld edges on the other hand, which positively influenced both the connection quality and the melt degassing.
However, the welding seam could only be classified as EG=‘D’ due to the presence of underfill.
Further tests on the influence of the focal plane position on the seam quality showed that a sharp surface focus–(IF) = 0 mA–led to strong shrinkage, underfill, and a scaled seam surface (cf. Fig.10.15b). It should be noted that all experiments were carried out with a beam offset of 0.4 mm, i.e. the TWIP MMC was molten and cavity formation occured, which is associated with the ingress of Mg-PSZ to the weld pool. The formation of cavities could be prevented with a shift of the focal plane over the top of the sheet metal (IF= 5 mA), but the underfill increased drastically (Fig.10.15a). A defocus ofIF=−5 mA below the sheet surface, on the other hand,
Fig. 10.15 Influence of the focal position of the EB on the weld quality (red: EG<‘D’, green: EG better than ‘D’), according to the lens current used;a–dlight optical cross sections;eschematic position of the welded materials. Beam parameters:IB= 45 mA,vs= 15 mm/s,x= 0.4 mm [15]
produced a pore-free welding seam with a finely scaled bead surface and without underfill (Fig.10.15c). With further defocusing of the beam, however, the porosity was unaffected (pore size<80 µm), but the underfill was increased (see Fig.10.15d).
This was attributed to the dependence of process stability on the stability of the keyhole. With a sharp focus on the surface, the capillary was not opened wide enough, and was quite susceptible to the ingress of ceramic particles. A larger opening of the steam channel resulted in better degassing and, therefore, better welding results.
Tests on welded aluminum joints by Ahn et al. showed similar tendencies [2].