The relation between liquation and solidification cracks in pulsed laser welding of 2024 aluminium alloy

It is a known fact that 2024 aluminium alloy is susceptible to solidification cracking in the weld metal and liquation cracking in the base metal when welded with fusion processes. The main purpose of this study is investigating whether these two types of cracks act independently or are related with each other in terms of initiation and propagation as this can lead to enhancing the understanding of the hot cracking phenomena in these alloys. Laser welding whether continuous or pulsed has promising outlooks for welding heat treatable aluminium alloys. But the fast heating and cooling rates involved in pulsed laser welding give rise to unique successively repeating microstructural features which provides an interesting base for studying the cracks. Thus, the experimentation involved Nd:YAG pulsed laser welding of 2024 aluminium alloy. The observations indicate that liquation cracks in the partially melted zone of wrought base metal have strong association with solidification cracks in the weld metal and accordingly it is proposed that the liquation cracks act as a strong initiation sites for solidification cracks. It is also shown that healing of liquated grain boundaries through backfilling can have a significant role on resistance to liquation cracking in the partially melted zone and that in turn can affect tendency for solidification cracking in the weld metal. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.