Thermal finite element modeling of the laser beam welding of tailor welded blanks through an equivalent volumetric heat source

In last decades, several numerical models of the keyhole laser welding process were developed in order to simulate the joining process. Most of them are sophisticated multiphase numerical models tempting to include all the several different physical phenomena involved. However, less computationally expensive thermo-mechanical models that are capable of satisfactorily simulating the process were developed as well. Among them, a moving volumetric equivalent heat source, whose dimensions are calibrated on experimental melt pool geometries, can estimate some aspects of the process using a finite element method (FEM) modeling with no need to consider fluid flows. In this work, a double-conical volumetric heat source is used to arrange a combination of two half hourglass-like shapes with different dimensions each other. This particular arrangement aims to properly assess the laser joining of a tailor welded blank (TWB) even in case of butt joint between sheets of different thicknesses. Experiments of TWBs made of 22MnB5 steel sheets were conducted in both equal and different thickness configurations in order to validate the proposed model. The results show that the model can estimate in a satisfactory way the shape and dimensions of the fused zone in case of TWB made of sheets with different thickness.