Laser beam welding aerospace aluminum using fiber lasers

This work intends to contribute towards the knowledge of AA6013 aluminum alloy weldability, autogenously welded with a high-power fiber laser. The quality and metallurgical characterization of the welds were done considering laser speed and power as process parameters. The present study shown that is possible to obtain welds with good macroscopic quality; i. e. with regular welds borders and without the presence of holes, cracks or porosities in speeds around 5 m/min using 1 kW laser power. Additionally, it had been verified that the liquation zone is well confined around 50 mu m. The presence of porosities in longitudinal cuts was linked to keyhole instabilities, which could be appropriately controlled by the process parameters. Although this alloy is known for some propensity for solidification cracking, any cracking was verified. This could be linked to an appropriate thermal cycle during welding due to the high quality laser beam, which produces short solidification interval. The present results indicate that other difficult-to-weld Al-based alloys could be properly joined using the fiber laser.