Neutron Diffraction Residual Stress Measurements in Key-Hole Laser Formed Weldments

There is a new generation of lasers available for materials processing. The new lasers include fibre and disc laser are characterized by very high beam quality at very high power levels providing extremely high energy density. In general laser welding is selected over other welding processes because of the minimisation of the heat input, residual stresses and distortion, for this reason they are increasingly popular over a wide range of industries. The narrowness of the welds makes it challenging to resolve the details of the residual stresses produced by the welding process. Residual strain/stress measurements of two specimens produced using the fibre laser were performed on Engin-X. Across the weld and through thickness distributions are reported in this paper.