NUMERICAL MODELING OF HEAT TRANSFER AND FLUID FLOW IN KEYHOLE PLASMA ARC WELDING OF DISSIMILAR STEEL JOINTS

摘要

The evolution of temperature profiles and weld pool geometry during dissimilar welding between 2205 duplex stainless steel and A36 low carbon steel using keyhole plasma arc welding has been simulated using a three dimensional numerical heat transfer and fluid flow model. An adaptive heat source is proposed as a heat source model for performing a non-linear transient thermal analysis, based on the configuration feature of keyhole plasma arc welds. Temperature profiles and solidified weld pool geometry are presented for three different welding heat input. The reversed bugle shape parameters (width of fusion zone at both top and bottom surfaces) of the weld pool geometry features for a dissimilar 2205A36 weld joint are summarized to successfully explain the observations. The model was also applied to keyhole plasma welding of 6.8 mm thick similar 2205 duplex stainless steel joint for validation. The simulation results were compared with independently obtained experimental data and good agreements have been obtained.