An alternative approach to thermal analysis using inverse problems in aluminum alloy welding

Purpose - The purpose of this article is the determination of the temperature fields in a weld region has always been an obstacle to the improvement of welding processes. As an alternative, the use of inverse problems to determine the heat flux during the welding process allows an analysis of these processes. Design/methodology/approach - This paper studies an alternative for the thermal analysis of the tungsten inert gas welding process on a 6,060 T5 aluminum alloy. For this purpose, a C++ code was developed, based on a transient three-dimensional heat transfer model. To estimate the amount of heat delivered to the plate, the specification function technique was used. Lab experiments were carried out to validate the methodology. A different experimental methodology is proposed to estimate the emissivity (radiation coefficient). Findings - The maximum difference between experimental and numerical temperatures is lower than 5 per cent. The determined emissivity value for the aluminum 6,060 T5 presented a good agreement with literature values. The thermal fields were analyzed as function of the positive polarity. The specification function method proved to be an adequate tool for heat input estimation in welding analysis. Originality/value - The proposed methodology proves to be a cheaper way to estimate the heat flux on the sample. The estimated power curves for the welding process are presented. The methodology to calculate the emissivity (radiation coefficient) was validated.