Evaluation of Nd: YAG Laser Welding Efficiencies for 304L Stainless Steel

AbstractThe laser material interaction, controlling of process parameters and their effect on melting, solidification and process efficiency are critical to understand the behavior of the weld joints. This paper aims to study the effect of welding speed on different process efficiencies in 304L Stainless Steel. The bead on 304L austenitic stainless steel plate is created by varying welding speed. A novel semi-empirical method based on weld pool volume measured from experimental results is used to predict the melting efficiency of Nd: YAG laser welding process. The dimensionless parameter models are used to estimate various types of measurable controlling parameters. These parameters have good agreement with the various available models in literature