Development of a finite element based heat transfer model for conduction mode laser spot welding process using an adaptive volumetric heat source

Numerically computed results of weld pool dimensions in conduction mode laser welding are sensitive to the estimated value of the actual beam energy absorbed by the substrate. In a conduction based heat transfer analysis, the incorporation of the laser beam induced energy as a surface only heat flux fails to realize enhanced heat transfer in weld pool as molten material attains higher temperature and convective transport of heat becomes predominant. An alternate is to include fluid flow analysis considering phenomenological laws of conservation of mass and momentum that greatly increases the complexity in modeling. Uncertainty of material properties such as effective thermal conductivity and viscosity in the weld pool also impedes such extensive fluid flow analysis. A simpler and tractable approach can be to consider a volumetric heat source within weld pool in a conduction based heat transfer analysis. Earlier efforts to accommodate volumetric heat source such as double-ellipsoidal form remained unpopular since the size of the final weld pool shapes is required to be known to begin with the calculation. The present work describes an improved approach where a volumetric heat source is defined adaptively as the size of the weld pool grows in size within the framework of a conduction based heat transfer analysis. The numerically computed results of weld pool dimensions following this approach have shown fair agreement with the corresponding measured values for laser spot weld samples.