Numerical Simulation of Influence of Different Heat Source Models on Temperature Field of Aluminum-Alloy Ring Weld Seam

Ring-seam joint pipe is more and more widely used in advanced auto-body assembly. However, Aluminums higher conductivity, higher convection coefficient, oxidability and low plasticity in high temperature compared to convectional low carbon steel make its welding numerical simulation much more difficult. Thermal simulation is the fundamental of aluminums coupled calculations of thermo-elasto-plastic for welding. In this paper, a pipe joint of ring seam for ZL114 aluminum alloy is numerically modeled based on birth-death element method and moving-heat-source function loading method. The simulation results agree well with the experiments, which shows that the double ellipsoid heat source model is most suitable for MIG welding simulation of aluminum alloy.