A Convenient Unified Model to Display the Mobile Keyhole-Mode Arc Welding Process

Keyhole-mode plasma arc welding (PAW) has a good prospect in the manufacturing industry. Unified models of plasma arc and workpiece help to reveal the physical mechanism in PAW for a better application. Previous unified models either deal with a constant keyhole situation or take too much computational time to display the dynamic keyhole process with a two-phase flow method. In view of the convenience for industrial application as well as good accuracy, a convenient unified model was developed to describe the mobile keyhole-mode PAW. With a simplified technique, the multiphase heat and force effect between plasma arc and workpiece was turned into a single-phase problem at each individual domain. Thus, it takes less computational time than previous unified models. The temperature field and weld pool during the mobile keyhole-mode PAW process were revealed, the arc flow and pool flow were displayed and the electric potential was predicted. The experiment was conducted on a stainless-steel plate, and the weld pool image and the measured arc pressure agree well with the calculated result. The calculated electric potential drop also coincides with the experiment. The model provides a convenient and accurate method to display the mobile keyhole-mode arc welding process.