Spatter formation in laser beam welding using laser beam oscillation

This paper presents an approach towards a better understanding of spatter formation in laser beam welding. Hereunto, experimental investigations and numerical simulation are carried out. For the study, various steels and aluminium alloys were selected to investigate the influences of alloying elements upon spatter formation. The welding was performed by applying a laser beam oscillation technique in which weld seam is generated by a spiral movement of the laser beam, in order to check the influence of weld pool movement according to spatter formation. This strategy was also transferred to the numerical simulation to get a detailed insight into the processes taking place in the keyhole when spatters form. Furthermore, a new detection method is presented which allows a three-dimensional tracking of spatters by using a pair of synchronised stereo cameras.