Laser welding of AA5083 samples by a High Power Diode Laser

Abstract

Laser welding is a very attractive technique to join different alloys at the industrial level, since its low heat input, high flexibility, high weld quality and high production rate. In this work, the weldability of the aluminium alloy AA5083 with a High Power Diode Laser has been tested. Concisely, samples were subjected to lineal treatments of laser radiation, with the objective of studying the properties of the beadon-plate welds generated. The main objective of the present work has been to study the influence of both the processing rate and the superficial treatment of the AA5083 samples, on the morphological, microstructural and corrosion properties of the laser weld beads. The sizes of the welds were higher as the processing rate was decreased. It was also verified that the application of a black layer before processing gave to beads with higher size but worse corrosion resistance than the blasting process.