Study of Plume Behavior during High-Power Disk Laser Welding

Abstract

Laser welding process has been widely used in industrial manufacturing. The purpose of this paper is to explore the inter-relation between laser welding results and the laser-induced plume behavior. High-power disk laser welding of stainless steel type304 was performed at different welding speeds. Combing the high speed camera and ultraviolet sensing filter, the plume image sequences of laser welding process have been obtained. Plume features including plume volume and plume flowing direction have been extracted by using high-speed photography and image processing technology. The dynamic behavior of laser-induced plume was investigated. The results showed that the laser-induced plume feature, especially the plume volume, was closely related to laser welding process conditions.