Welding, Joining and Additive Manufacturing International Conference 2015

Development of heat transfer and material flow based models have improved the basic understanding of welding and joining processes. These numerical models have helped explain heat generation and transfer, temperature distribution, material flow, weld pool shape and size, defect formation, heating cooling rates, and metallographic changes during welding. The insight generated from these models has helped development of the processes to achieve defect free welded joints without excessive experimentation. The available heat transfer and material flow models can successfully simulate fusion welding processes such as GMAW, GTAW, LBW, EBW, Laser-Arc Hybrid welding etc. A three dimensional heat transfer and visco-plastic material flow model has also been developed to simulate friction stir welding of various alloys, and will be presented in detail. The developed model can estimate temperature and velocity distribution along with torque, force and stresses on the tool. The computed values are validated using experimental results and are used to explain some of the experimentally observed tool failure.