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Abstract
In order to study the effects of laser induced metal vapour on arc plasma during laser arc double sided welding (LADSW), emission spectroscopy techniques were utilised. The arc plasma in LADSW of 5A06 aluminium alloy was compared with conventional gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) in this work. The electron temperature and density were estimated by the Saha–Boltzmann equation and the Stark broadening effect. The results indicated that the amount of metal vapour in the arc plasma during LADSW was larger than that of GTAW. Furthermore, the electron temperature of arc plasma in LADSW was lower than that in GTAW, and the electron density of arc plasma in LADSW was higher than that in GTAW near the arc anode. It was shown that the differences in arc properties between LADSW and the conventional GTAW processes were the result of laser induced metal vapour changing the composition of the arc plasma.
This research was sponsored by the National Nature Science Foundation (grant no. 51105105) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant no. HIT. NSRIF. 201137). The authors are grateful to A. Pequegnat of the University of Waterloo for polishing the English of this manuscript and Professor C. F. Hou (Department of Physics, Harbin Institute of Technology) for many useful discussions of atomic emission spectroscopy. In addition, the authors wish to thank Dr M. Shuiliang (State Key Laboratory of Advanced Welding and Joining, Harbin Institute of Technology) for the help of experiments about spectroscopic measurement.