Effect of Heat Input on Porosity Defects in a Fiber Laser Welded Socket-Joint Made of Powder Metallurgy Molybdenum Alloy.

Porosity defects are still a challenging issue in the fusion welding of molybdenum and its alloys due to the pre-existing interior defects associated with the powder metallurgy process. Fiber laser welding of end plug and cladding tube made of nanostructured high-strength molybdenum (NS-Mo) alloy was performed in this work with an emphasis on the role of welding heat input. The distribution and morphology of porosity defects in the welded joints were examined by computed tomography (CT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Preliminary results showed that laser welding of NS-Mo under low heat input significantly reduced the porosity defects in the fusion zone. The results of computed tomography (CT) showed that when the welding heat input decreased from 3600 J/cm (i.e., 1200 W, 0.2 m/min) to 250 J/cm (i.e., 2500 W, 6 m/min), the porosity ratio of the NS-Mo joints declined from 10.7% to 2.1%. Notable porosity defects under high heat input were related to the instability of the keyhole, expansion and the merging of bubbles in the molten pool, among which the instability of the keyhole played the dominant role. The porous defects at low heat input were generated as bubbles released from the powder metallurgy base metal (BM) did not have enough time to overflow and escape.

Effects of Laser Welding and Post-Weld Heat Treatment on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Aged Ti55531 Alloy.

As one of the relatively new titanium (Ti) alloys in the engineering field, ß-Ti alloy⁻Ti55531 has attracted a great deal of attention due to its excellent mechanical properties, while a few research papers on weldability and the post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) process of Ti55531 have been reported. Based on an orthogonal experiment design, the parameters of laser beam welding (LBW) of Ti55531 alloy with a thickness of 2 mm were optimized. Moreover, the influences of welding parameters and PWHT on the microstructures and performance of the laser-welded joint of Ti55531 were analyzed. The results showed that, for microstructures in different zones of as-welded joints of Ti55531: three forms of α phases (i.e., equiaxial αp phase, lamellar αS phase, and αGB phase at grain boundaries) were observed in base metal (BM); in the heat affected zone (HAZ), part of lamellar αS phase had dissolved while equiaxial αp phase had grown; the fusion zone (FZ) mainly consisted of ß phase, which presented as coarse columnar crystals. After the PWHT process, the microstructures of the welded joint were changed: in the BM zone, α phase at grain boundary disappeared and lamellar α phase decreased; in the HAZ, the edge of αp phase obviously dissolved; in the FZ, plenty of compact needle-like α phases were observed. The tensile strength of the as-welded joint was about 940 MPa and then increased to 1161 MPa after PWHT, which were 78.4% and 96.8% of that of the original BM respectively. The fracture position transformed from the interface between the FZ and HAZ to the BM during tensile tests after PWHT.