Microstructure characteristics of thick aluminum alloy plate joints welded by fiber laser

• The columnar grains were transformed into equiaxed grains and further refined.
• The microhardness of welding joint was improved by well-designed heat process.
• The thermal damage was avoided by fiber laser welding and super narrow gap design.

It's difficult to weld high strength thick plate since the groove is huge when using traditional arc welding, and the weld tends to be softened and large deformation could occur after multi-layer welding. All of these can affect the industrial application of high strength thick plate wielding. In this case, developing advanced welding technology and welding material is necessary to optimize the microstructure and performance of the welds. Fiber laser has many advantages such as good monochrome and high quality laser beam. In order to decrease the heat damage to the base metal from the welding heat source, low heat input is employed for welding thick plate. Fiber laser is applied in the welding of 20 mm thick Al–Zn–Mg–Cu alloy with super narrow gap filler wire. The microstructure comparison of Al–Mg–Mn alloy and Al–Mg–Mn–Zr–Er alloy welded joints reveals that a huge amount of fine equiaxed grains is formed in the weld zone of Zr and Er micro-alloying Al–Mg–Mn alloy welding wire and a great number of precipitation strengthening phases are precipitated in the weld zone after the heat treatment of welded joints in the entirety.

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