Influence of the focal position on the melt flow during laser welding of steel

Marcel Schaefer, Steffen Kessler, Florian Fetzer, and Thomas Graf

Citation: Journal of Laser Applications 29, 012010 (2017);

View online: https://doi.org/10.2351/1.4972098
View Table of Contents: http://lia.scitation.org/toc/jla/29/1
Published by the Laser Institute of America

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JOURNAL OF LASER APPLICATIONS VOLUME 29, NUMBER 1 FEBRUARY 2017

Influence of the focal position on the melt flow during laser welding of steel
Marcel Schaefera) and Steffen Kessler
TRUMPF GmbH þ Co. KG, Johann-Maus-Straße 2, 71254 Ditzingen, Germany
Florian Fetzer and Thomas Graf
Institut fuer Strahlwerkzeuge (IFSW), Pfaffenwaldring 43, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany

(Received 22 September 2016; accepted for publication 17 November 2016; published 16 December 2016)
For keyhole laser welding of tempered steel, we show that the characteristic formation of eddies in
the melt flow significantly depends on the focal position. The local melt flow velocities and
accelerations were analyzed in-situ by means of x-ray imaging. It was observed that the keyhole
geometry as well as the direction of rotation of the eddy close to the weld pool surface changes
C 2016 Laser Institute of America.
when the focal-position is shifted by one Rayleigh length. V
[http://dx.doi.org/10.2351/1.4972098]

Key words: laser welding, focal position, melt flow, weld pool, in-situ x-ray observation

I. INTRODUCTION method to quantitatively evaluate the whole averaged veloc-

ity and acceleration fields of the flow which effectively can
During continuous-wave keyhole-mode laser welding,
be regarded as a footprint of the process. To facilitate com-
the dynamic behavior and the geometric stability of the key-
parisons, the influence of the focal position on the melt flow
hole strongly contribute to the momentum balance of the
is exemplarily discussed for the same tempered steel
3D-melt flow and the shape of the melt pool.1 The impact of
42CrMoS4 and the same two focal positions as already
the laser power on the weld pool geometry was, e.g.,
reported in Ref. 7.
reported in Ref. 2 based on in-situ x-ray imaging for CO2
laser welding of aluminum.
II. METHOD
The corresponding melt flow—visualized by the move-
ment of tungsten carbide particles in the x-ray images— A. Experiment design
which determines the weld pool geometry and influences the
In order to prevent the formation of cold cracks due to
formation of melt ejections and spatters is known to strongly
the high carbon equivalent of 42CrMoS4,8 the weld samples
depend on the feedrate3,4 and was also occasionally reckoned
were preheated in an oven to a temperature of T ¼ 500  C.
to be influenced by the focal position.4 For laser welding of
To provide comparability, the mechanical restraining condi-
titanium,3 aluminum,5 and stainless steel,6 x-ray observa-
tions and the volume of the weld pool, which also depend on
tions further confirmed that the movement of bubbles and
the capillary depth, needed to be unchanged. The laser power
tracer particles in the weld pool are identical and that pore
was therefore adapted for the two focal positions while the
formation decreases with increased welding speed.
feed rate (v ¼ 4:0 m/min) and the penetration depth
A reduction of hot cracks in dependence of the melt flow
(PD ¼ 4:0 mm) were kept constant for all welds. The inci-
behavior and the weld pool geometry influenced by the focal
dent laser power was set to PL ¼ 2:4 kW for the focal posi-
position was also provided in Ref. 7. By evaluating longitu-
tion of FP ¼ 1:4 mm (below the surface of the workpiece,
dinal cross sections of overlap joints, it was shown that vary-
FP ¼ 0 mm corresponding to the surface of the workpiece)
ing the focal positions has a significant influence on the
and to PL ¼ 2:7 kW for FP ¼ 2:1 mm, respectively.
cumulated length of the hot cracks in the weld seams and
A sketch of the setup used for the in-situ x-ray observa-
also on the sheet material mixing of dissimilar steel grades.
tions of the melt flow and the keyhole shape is depicted in
In view of the importance of the melt flow behavior for
Fig. 1.
the processing quality and the repeated indications on the
The welding optics TRUMPF BEO D70 focused the
impact of the focal position on the flow characteristics,
laser beam (red) on the welding sample with an optical mag-
detailed investigations were performed to analyze the latter
nification of one. For the experiments, the disk laser
relation. The following report shows that a shift of the focal
TRUMPF TruDisk 5001 with a beam parameter product of
position by one Rayleigh length influences the extension and
BPP ¼ 4 mm  mrad was used. The diameter of the focused
even the direction of rotation of the eddies in the melt flow.
beam waist was df ¼ 116 lm and the Rayleigh length was
As advancement, compared to the common analysis of parti-
measured to be zR ¼ 0:7 mm. During welding, the samples
cle traces, the presented investigations are based on a new
with a length of lx ¼ 100 mm, a width of wy ¼ 5 mm, and a
a) height of hz ¼ 10 mm were clamped on a linear axis which
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; electronic mail:
marcel.schaefer@de.trumpf.com. Telephone: þ49-(0)7156-303-30597. moved them in the direction of the (negative) x-coordinate as
URL: http://www.trumpf.com specified in Fig. 1. To analyze the welding process, the x-ray

1938-1387/2017/29(1)/012010/5/$28.00 012010-1 C 2016 Laser Institute of America

V
012010-2 J. Laser Appl., Vol. 29, No. 1, February 2017
FIG. 1. Experimental setup of the x-ray imaging system.
beam (blue) propagates through the sample in the (negative)
y-direction and is recorded in a high-speed imaging system
as described in Ref. 9.
B. Evaluation methodology
To visualize the fluid flow with the x-ray system, tung-
sten carbide tracer particles were introduced into the weld
pool. Their movement was recorded at a frame rate of 1 kHz.
Two different particle sizes with diameters of 125 6 63 lm
and of 580 6 80 lm were also used to evaluate a possible
impact of the particles size on the evaluation of the melt
flow.
The particle’s movements projected onto the x-z-plane
by the x-ray imaging were tracked from frame to frame until
the particle solidified (which is qualitatively recognizable
when the particle’s movement freezes to a steady shift in the
x-direction at the same speed as the workpiece).
The particle’s continuous trajectory i was then interpo-
lated from the measured positions xim and zim recorded at the
times tm, where m just numbers the known particle positions,
by means of a cubic spline function.10 By this, it is ensured
that the trajectory passes through the measured positions and
that the acceleration of the particles is minimized.11
Figuratively, the cubic spline interpolation answers the ques-
tion how a particle has to move if the measured positions
xim, zim have to be met at the times tm while the forces on
that particle are as small as possible. The calculated splines
are subsequently combined to one curve given by xi ðtÞ and
zi ðtÞ as depicted in Fig. 2.
While the maximum spatial deviations between the
straight lines connecting adjacent points and the trajectories
from the cubic spline shown in Fig. 2 are small (less than
Schaefer et al.
FIG. 2. Linear (red) strait lines along the measured consecutive particle
positions (black dots) and cubic spline interpolation (blue) of two indepen-
dent particle trajectories at two different process times. The measured parti-
cle positions m of trajectory i are ascendingly labeled with black, those of
trajectory i þ 1 with red numbers. The inset A shows the velocity averaging
method of multiple trajectories explained in the text.
60 lm with an average absolute deviation of 16 lm), the
cubic spline is much smoother and therefore physically more
realistic.
The interpolated particle trajectories were used to calcu-
late the velocity components vix ðtÞ ¼ dxi ðtÞ=dt and viz ðtÞ
¼ dzi ðtÞ=dt as well as the acceleration components aix ðtÞ
¼ d 2 xi ðtÞ=dt2 and aiz ðtÞ ¼ d2 zi ðtÞ=dt2 .
In order to investigate the influence of the focal position
on the typical character of the resulting melt flow, an aver-
aged velocity distribution was calculated by averaging over
many trajectories recorded at different times during a pro-
cess. To this end, the averaged melt flow velocity was evalu-
ated near the nodes of an equidistant x-z-grid with a mesh
size of 0.1 mm as depicted in the inset A of Fig. 2.
In order to smoothen the calculated flow distribution, a
number of nine equidistant interpolated points (xIij , zIij ) (small
dots in the inset of Fig. 2) were included between two mea-
sured positions (large dots) where j indicates all interpolated
points of the trajectory i. For every node ðx; zÞ, the vectorial
velocities vIij at the positions ðxIij ; zIij Þ were averaged for all
considered trajectories i by
PP
wðx  xIij ; z  zIij Þ  vIij
i
PP
j
vðx; zÞ ¼ (1)
wðx  xIij ; z  zIij Þ
i j
(analogously for the averaged acceleration aðx; zÞ) where
 pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 for dx2 þ dz2 < 0:2 mm
wðdx; dzÞ ¼ (2)
0 else
is the weight function used to average only over the points
on spline curves located within a radius closer than 0:2 mm
to the considered node.
J. Laser Appl., Vol. 29, No. 1, February 2017 Schaefer et al. 012010-3

III. RESULTS
Despite the averaging nature, this new evaluation
method provides more information than the sole analysis of
the trajectories of tracer particles as it reveals the dominating
flow characteristics of a welding process. For experiments
performed with the focal position of FP ¼ 2:1 mm, this
procedure is illustrated in Fig. 3, showing the superposition
of 29 particle trajectories (arrows indicate the direction of
the particle movement), and in Fig. 4(b), showing the corre-
sponding distribution of the average melt flow velocities.
Figure 4(a) shows the pattern of the average melt flow veloc-
ities as recorded with a focal position of FP ¼ 1:4 mm.
The corresponding averaged acceleration fields are shown in
Fig. 5.
The mean keyhole shapes shown in Figs. 4 and 5 were
obtained by averaging the x-ray images of the capillary com-
posed from several consecutive frames9 during the stable
phase of the welding process (from 100 ms after the start up
to 100 ms before the end of the welding duration) and apply-
ing Niblack’s threshold method12 to the gray value image.
The red dotted contour line in Figs. 4 and 5 with a trans-
parent red filling qualitatively represents the mean weld pool
geometry. The rear contour of the weld pool was determined
based on the positions where the motion of the tracer par-
ticles freezes to the movement as given by the feed of the
sample. Since the recorded density of these positions was
limited, the rear contour of the melt pool, however, is only
an approximation to the real solid-liquid boundary.
As illustrated in Fig. 4, a shift of the focal position of
one Rayleigh length zR ¼ 0:7 mm leads to significant differ-
ences with respect to
1. the direction of the melt flows, notably at 2:0 mm < z <
0:0 mm (region I);
2. the size of the mean keyhole openings between 1:0 mm
< z < 0:0 mm (being smaller for FP ¼ 1:4 mm; region II).

FIG. 4. Distribution of the averaged melt flow velocity for FP ¼ 1:4 mm

(upper image (a)) and FP ¼ 2:1 mm (lower image (b)). Length and color
of the arrows represent the local melt flow velocity. The yellow contour
shows the mean keyhole shape also extracted from the x-ray images; the red
dotted area qualitatively shows the mean melt pool geometry. The black
ellipses highlight the regions for comparison.

Looking at the acceleration patterns in Fig. 5, the impact

of the focal position on the average melt flow is particularly
prominent in the regions labeled “I” to “III” (highlighted by
dashed ellipses in Fig. 5) insofar that
1. a wider keyhole diameter in regions I (in Fig. 5) is associ-
ated with an acceleration of the melt to the back (opposite
to the welding direction);
FIG. 3. Superposition of 29 tracer particle trajectories for focal position
2. the different acceleration pattern at the bottom of the
FP ¼ 2:1 mm. The arrows correspond to the direction of particle move- weld pool (regions II in Fig. 5) may indicate different
ment; the wider the arrows’ tip the higher the local particle speed. keyhole dynamics: the centripetal pattern seen in region II
012010-4 J. Laser Appl., Vol. 29, No. 1, February 2017 Schaefer et al.

Prior to the discussion of the results, it should be pointed

out that the tracer particle can be assumed to have a negligi-
ble impact on the measured melt flows. Figure 6 shows the
probability of detecting a particle in an interval Dv at a given
velocity v. The yellow bars show the distribution of the small
particles (125 6 63 lm diameter) and the red bars indicate
the one for the large particles (580 6 80 lm diameter). The
deviation between the average velocity of the large particles
vabs;big ¼ 307 mm/s and of the small particles vabs;small ¼ 285
mm/s is only 4.1%.
Since the two different sizes of the particles show the
same velocity distribution, our experiments indicate that
there is only a negligible influence of the size of the tracer
particles on the measured melt flow, as has already been
shown in Ref. 14.

IV. DISCUSSION
From the distribution of the averaged melt flow veloci-
ties shown in Fig. 4 and the averaged melt flow accelerations
depicted in Fig. 5, one can qualitatively abstract the predom-
inant melt flows depicted in Fig. 7. In both cases, there are
three main melt flow eddies labeled “1” or “1a” and “1b” for
the eddy at the top of the weld pool, “2” or “2a” and “2b” for
the eddy in the center, and “3” for the eddy near the bottom
of the weld pool.
The solid arrows indicate the dominant melt flows,
which explicitly means that the number of particles moving
along this curved solid arrow corresponds to 31% of all the
analyzed particle trajectories. The dashed arrows represent a
less dominant melt flow corresponding to less than 20% of
the particles moving along this path.
The major difference in the characteristic melt flows is
noticed for eddy 2. With a focal position of 1.4 mm (Fig.
7(A)), eddy 2 (divided into 2a and 2b) reaches up to the sur-
face at the rear of the weld pool. With a focal position of
2.1 mm (Fig. 7(B)), eddy 2 is much smaller and less elon-
gated in the vertical direction, as the upper part of the melt
flow is dominated by a now elongated eddy 1 (divided into
1b and 1a). For eddy 3, there is no visible difference between

FIG. 5. Distribution of the averaged melt flow acceleration for FP ¼ 1:4

mm (upper image (a)) and FP ¼ 2:1 mm (lower image (b)). Length and
color of the arrows represent the local melt flow acceleration. The yellow
contour shows the mean keyhole shape also extracted from the x-ray images;
the red dotted area qualitatively shows the mean melt pool geometry. The
black ellipses highlight the regions for comparison.

Fig. 5(a) corresponds more to the one expected for a com-

mon eddy whereas one can assume that spiking (compare
Ref. 13) is more pronounced for FP ¼ 2:1 mm (region
II Fig. 5(b)) and is consistent with the behavior of mate-
rial mixing of dissimilar metals as shown in Ref. 7;
3. the high acceleration values in region III (Fig. 5(a)) might
be caused by the narrow keyhole at z ¼ 2:0 mm that
increases the friction of the metal vapor at the keyhole FIG. 6. Histogram of observed speed of the tracer particles for FP ¼ 1:4 mm.
rear. The bars in red correspond to large particles, the yellow bars to small particles.
J. Laser Appl., Vol. 29, No. 1, February 2017
FIG. 7. Abstracted predominant melt flows observed for the two focal posi-
tions FP ¼ 1:4 mm (A) and FP ¼ 2:1 mm (B). The characteristic melt
flow eddies are labeled from 1 to 3. Solid arrows represent dominant melt
flows, dashed lines less dominant melt flows. The red dotted border line with
transparent red filling qualitatively represents the mean weld pool geometry.
The yellow border line stands for the mean keyhole geometry.
the flows observed with the two different focal positions, nei-
ther with respect to its orientation nor with respect to its size
and position in the weld pool. The analysis of the accelera-
tion, however, indicates that in the case of the deeper focal
position at FP ¼ 2:1 mm this eddy is seemingly superim-
posed with spiking effects.
The distinct difference in the melt flow characteristics in
the upper part of the melt pool also leads to a slight qualita-
tive change of the weld pool geometries. First, the average
weld pool length amounts to 3.1 mm for the welding with
FP ¼ 1:4 mm and extends to 3.4 mm with FP ¼ 2:1 mm.
Second, the rear end of the weld pool (see angle a in Fig. 7)
is significantly steeper in the case of the welding with a focal
position of 1:4 mm.
Hence, the observations show that indeed the focal posi-
tion can have a significant impact on the characteristics of
the resulting melt flow and consequently on the weld pool
geometry. This and the previously noticed3–5 direct conse-
quences for spattering, pores, and melt ejections also point
out the practical importance of a stable control of the focal
position during welding, e.g., by preventing a thermally
induced focal shift. Further research will be needed to gain a
deeper quantitative understanding of the mutual interaction
of the keyhole dynamics (driven by the varying absorption
of the incident laser radiation and the local evaporation pres-
sure) and the melt flow. Further investigations will also be
devoted to the question inasmuch the thus changed weld
pool geometry that can explain the influence of the focal
position on the formation of hot cracks as observed in Ref. 7,
e.g., by corresponding changes of the distributions of tem-
perature, stress and strain.
V. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the observations based on in-situ x-ray
imaging have confirmed the strong influence of the focal
position on the characteristic melt flow behavior as supposed
Schaefer et al. 012010-5
in previous publications. A change of the focal position by
one Rayleigh length affected the keyhole shape, the melt
flow direction and the weld pool geometry mainly in the
upper half of the weld pool. To facilitate this type of obser-
vation, a new method to evaluate the characteristic melt flow
based on averaging over many tracer particle trajectories
was introduced.
Motivated by the findings reported in Ref. 7 and the
results presented here, further work will be undertaken to
influence the melt flow and the weld pool geometry in order
to prevent hot cracking.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors gratefully acknowledge Karin Heller,
Nicolai Speker, and Thomas Harrer from TRUMPF as well
as all colleagues at the IFSW for fruitful discussions.
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