Study of hybrid laser / MAG welding process: characterization of the geometry and the hydrodynamics of the melt pool and development of a 3D thermal model

Hybrid laser/MIG-MAG welding shows high advantages compared to laser welding or GMAW arc welding used separately. Thanks to this process, higher productivity can be gained through higher welding speed, higher squeeze tolerance moreover possible improvement of the metallurgical properties of the weld seam can be obtained. However, many operating parameters have to be set up in order to achieve optimal process. The complex physical phenomena, which govern welding process, have to be understood in order to use efficiently this technique in mass production. Understanding of these phenomena is also necessary to program numerical simulations which fit to this process. In the first step, experimental studies have been carried out with GMAW, laser and hybrid welding on samples of S355 steel. Influence of operating parameters has been analyzed through films performed with speed camera and macro-graphies of weld seam cross section. Surface deformations of the melt pool, induced by the arc pressure, weld pool length, droplet detachment and welding speed, have been analyzed precisely from images of the surface melt pool. In a second step, a numerical model was developed using the COMSOL Multiphysics software for MAG, laser and hybrid laser/MAG welding processes. A 3D quasi-stationary model has been calculated from the temperature field within the metal. The originality of the MAG and hybrid model lies in the prediction of the melt pool surface profile used to determine the 3D geometry, by taking into account the material input. The influence of different parameters such as arc power and speed welding on the efficiency as well as the distribution radius of the arc power and the arc pressure are analyzed through validations with different experimental results and different calculation configurations. (author)