Characteristics of laser-beam welds of age-hardenable 6061-T6 aluminum alloy

Akio Hirose; Kojiro F. Kobayashi

doi:10.1117/12.497791

3 March 2003 Characteristics of laser beam welds of age-hardenable 6061-T6 aluminum alloy

Akio Hirose, Kojiro F. Kobayashi

Proceedings Volume 4831, First International Symposium on High-Power Laser Macroprocessing; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.497791
Event: LAMP 2002: International Congress on Laser Advanced Materials Processing, 2002, Osaka, Japan

Abstract

Laser beam welding is attractive for joining age-hardenable aluminum alloys, because its low over-all heat input results in a narrow weld heat affected zone (HAZ), where softening caused by dissolution of age precipitates occurs. In the present work, 1mm-thick 6061-T6 aluminum alloy plates were welded using a 2.5 kW CO₂ laser and it was experimentally proved that the width of the softened region in the laser beam weld was less than 1/7 that of a TIG weld. Moreover the hardness in the softened region of the laser beam weld was found to be almost fully recovered to the base metal hardness by applying a post-weld aging treatment at 443 K for 28.8 ks without solution annealing unlike the TIG weld. These results characterize the advantage of laser beam welding in joining of the age-hardenable aluminum alloy as compared with the conventional arc welding. The hardness distributions in the HAZ were theoretically evaluated based on kinetic equations describing the dissolution of hardening β' (Mg₂Si) precipitates and the precipitation of non-hardening β' (Mg₂Si) precipitates during the weld thermal cycles to quantitatively prove above mentioned advantageous characteristics of laser beam welding.

Citation Download Citation

Akio Hirose and Kojiro F. Kobayashi "Characteristics of laser beam welds of age-hardenable 6061-T6 aluminum alloy", Proc. SPIE 4831, First International Symposium on High-Power Laser Macroprocessing, (3 March 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.497791

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