Probing liquation cracking and solidification through modeling of momentum, heat, and solute transport during welding of aluminum alloys

A transport phenomena-based mathematical model is developed to understand liquation cracking in weldments during fusion welding. Equations of conservation of mass, momentum, heat, and solute transport are numerically solved considering nonequilibrium solidification and filler metal addition to determine the solid and liquid phase fractions in the solidifying region and the solute distribution in the weld pool. An effective partition coefficient that considers the local interface velocity and the undercooling is used to simulate solidification during welding. The calculations show that convection plays a dominant role in the solute transport inside the weld pool. The predicted weld-metal solute content agreed well with the independent experimental observations. The liquation cracking susceptibility in Al-Cu alloy weldments could be reliably predicted by the model based on the computed solidifying weld-metal composition and solid fraction considering nonequilibrium solidification. (C) 2005 American Institute of Physics.