Vapor plume and melted zone behavior during dissimilar laser welding of titanium to aluminum alloy

The present study deals with continuous Yb:YAG laser welding of pure titanium to aluminum alloy A5754 performed with different beam offsets to the joint line. Spectroscopic and morphological characterization of vapor plume exiting the keyhole was combined with post-mortem observation and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analysis of the welds. The laser beam centered on the joint line resulted in periodic transversal inclination of a vapor jet on the aluminum side associated with a local increase of melt width and an intense spatter formation. Such behavior can be attributed to the instability of the keyhole wall from the aluminum side. The beam offset on the titanium side led to the stabilization of vapor plume, the attenuation of spattering, and a minimal mixing between the two liquid metals. On the contrary, the beam offset on the aluminum side produced a violent formation of spatters and a highly unstable, diffuse vapor jet. In this case, the liquid metals underwent a violent mixing that was progressively reduced along with the decrease in quantity of melted Ti. The observed spectral regions contained the emission peaks of neutral Ti and Mn. Very few emission lines of Al were observed, because they require higher excitation energies compared to Ti and Mn. Boltzmann linearization using Ti emission peaks allowed the estimation of vapor temperature to be between 5000 and 6000 K, except for the welds with the beam offset on Al.