Elucidation of Welding Stability Based on Keyhole Configuration during High-Power Fiber Laser Welding

During deep penetration laser welding, a keyhole is formed in the molten pool due to the intense recoil pressure of evaporation. The formation of the keyhole leads to a deep penetration weld with a high aspect ratio and this is the most advantageous feature of welding by high-energy-density beams. The configuration and characteristics of a keyhole are related to the welding stability. In a fiber laser butt-joint welding of Type 304 austenitic stainless steel plate with a high power 10 kW continuous wave fiber laser, an infrared sensitive high-speed video camera was used to capture the dynamic images of the molten pools. The configurations of a keyhole were analyzed through image processing techniques such as median filtering, wiener filtering and gray level threshold segmentation to obtain the edge of a keyhole. The width and the area of a keyhole were defined as the keyhole characteristic parameters, and the deviation between the laser beam and weld center as a parameter reflecting the welding stability. By analyzing the change of the keyhole characteristic parameters during welding process, it was found that these parameters were related to the welding stability. Welding experimental results and analysis of the keyhole characteristic parameters confirmed that the welding stability could be monitored and distinguished by a keyhole configuration during high-power fiber laser welding.