International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Numerical study of keyhole dynamics and keyhole-induced porosity

formation in remote laser welding of Al alloys
Runqi Lin a, Hui-ping Wang b,⇑, Fenggui Lu a,⇑, Joshua Solomon b, Blair E. Carlson b
a
Shanghai Key Laboratory of Materials Laser Processing and Modification, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, PR China
b
General Motors Company, Warren, MI 48090, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Keyhole-induced porosity in remote laser welded Al joints leads to weakened joint strength. In the study,
Received 13 August 2016 the remote laser welding processes are numerically simulated to reveal mechanism of keyhole and
Received in revised form 6 December 2016 keyhole-induced porosity formation. It is found that porosity formation takes three steps: bubble forma-
Accepted 9 December 2016
tion, bubble floating to the back of molten pool and bubble being captured by solidification front. The
Available online 18 December 2016
porosity prevention can be achieved by interrupting one of these three steps. The process simulation
shows that violent melt flow behind the keyhole is the root cause of pore formation. It leads to keyhole
Keywords:
collapsing and resulting in large fluctuation of keyhole depth and bubble formation. The vortex-type melt
Laser welding
Numerical simulation
flow behind the keyhole is also the main cause of the bubbles floating from the keyhole’s bottom into the
Al welding molten pool; and Al’s high thermal conductivity and strong melt flow make the bubbles difficult to
Keyhole dynamics escape. Various porosity prevention approaches are simulated in the study to check their effectiveness
Porosity in terms of interrupting the three steps. Also, the corresponding experimental test are carried out as ver-
Molten pool dynamics ification. The amounts of porosity predicted by the simulations agree very well with what being observed
in the experimental test. The study suggests that high welding speed is helpful in keeping the keyhole
open and not creating strong melt flow; large forward inclination angle also creates quiescent molten
pool flow and hence makes the bubbles difficult to float into the rear molten pool. The findings from
the study provides fundamental insights into the mechanism of porosity formation during laser welding
of Al alloys and guidance in keyhole-induced porosity prevention.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Aluminum alloys have been extensively adopted for manufac-
turing lightweight structures [1,2] due to their light weight and
high relative strength [3]. Laser welding, as a process which pro-
vides high energy density, high welding speed and narrow heat
affected zone, is ideal for joining thin automotive panels and mate-
rials with high thermal conductivity such as aluminum alloys [4,5].
The process also provides great weight reduction opportunity by
being able to work on narrow flanges. There are two types of laser
welding processes: conventional and remote ones, categorized
based on beam travelling apparatus. The conventional laser weld-
ing process, where the welding optics operate at joints’ proximity
with or without filler wires, relies on the robotic movement of
welding optics to move the laser beam along welding path. On
the other end, the remote laser welding process, which operates
at far distance such as 600 mm away, moves the laser beam along
⇑ Corresponding authors.
E-mail address: hui-ping.wang@gm.com (H.-p. Wang).
the welding path via rotations of two tiny galvo mirrors. As a
result, the remote laser welding process offers much faster scan-
ning speed than the conventional one [6,7]. The remote laser weld-
ing process is autogenous and contactless, also usually in a keyhole
mode to generate deep penetration. As a result, the weld porosity,
often induced by keyhole instability during deep penetration, is
one big challenge in remote laser welding applications [8]. Large
porosity strongly affects the strength and fatigue property of
welded joints [9]. Its irregular shape even causes stress concentra-
tion and leads to cracking.
The porosity induced by keyhole instability is one of the two
types of porosities involved in Al welding. The other porosity is
purely due to low boiling-point contents such as hydrogen and
magnesium in the Al materials. This type of pore has perfect spher-
ical shape, and often observed in Al welds if hydrogen content is
not controlled or there are low-boiling elements in the alloys.
The mitigation and prevention of porosity due to low-boiling con-
tents has been well discussed in the literatures and textbooks, will
not be studied here. Irregular shaped pore formation in the
keyhole-mode welding process has been studied and determined

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2016.12.019
0017-9310/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256
to be related to keyhole dynamics [10,11]. Experimental methods
such as high-speed CCD filming [12], spectral analysis [13] and
sound monitoring [14] were used to analyze behaviors of keyhole
and molten pool. Matsunawa and Katayama [15–17] developed a
high speed optical and X-ray transmission imaging system to
observe the keyhole behavior directly and study mechanism of
keyhole and porosity formation. Their study observed that bubbles
were formed when the keyhole wall collapsed and trapped shield-
ing gas or air inside. This was caused when the dynamic pressure of
metallic vapor jet from the front side of the keyhole dented the rear
wall of the keyhole. By inserting a tungsten particle in the base
metal, they also studied the material flow in the molten pool sur-
rounding the keyhole and observed vortex flow in the molten pool
behind the keyhole. Katayama’s group has also done many exper-
imental works to study the effect of weld parameters on porosity
formation [18,20,21]. They found high welding speed or low laser
power could lead to low-heat-input welding conditions which is
beneficial to suppressing porosity formation. Shielding gases could
also be helpful to reduce porosity except that N2 was found pro-
moting porosity formation. Also, they found that when laser beam
pointing forward with an acute inclination angle with the base
metal surface, porosities decreased as the inclination angle
decreased. Li et al. [19] found that large spot size could lead to
low depth-to-width ratio of the keyhole which helped to maintain
the keyhole’s stability. That is, less bubbles were resulted, and
rarely pores remained in the weld. Many literatures can be found
on experimental studies of effect of welding process parameters
on porosity formation, such as Seto and Katayama’s work in 2001
[18] on welding speed, Katayama and Mizutani’s work [20] on laser
power and Seto and Katayama’s work in 2002 [21] on shielding
gas. However, the mechanism of these parameters affecting pore
formation have not been fully investigated.
In recent years, with the development of the computer technol-
ogy, researchers have been developing numerical models to simu-
late laser welding processes so as to study mechanism of keyhole
formation, melt flow and porosity formation [22–24]. Ki et al.
[22] developed a three-dimensional laser keyhole welding model
using the level set method to represent liquid/vapor and solid/liq-
uid interfaces in order to model keyhole free surface evolution. No
keyhole collapse was considered. Cho and Na [25] modeled multi-
ple reflection and Fresnel absorption of laser beam in the keyhole,
and their predicted keyhole dimension agreed well with the exper-
imental ones. However, no keyhole collapse was considered either.
Moraitis and Labeas [26] used finite element method to build a
local model for keyhole shape prediction based on temperature
distribution and a full-scale model for thermal–mechanical process
simulation of laser welding of Al lap joints. Both models were
based on solid mechanics with no convective fluid flow and no free
surface formation. Zhou and Tsai [27] modeled the keyhole col-
lapse and bubble formation using a two-dimensional model. Effect
of keyhole’s depth-to-width aspect ratio on bubble formation was
studied using the model. It was found that a small depth-to-width
aspect ratio keyhole welding led to no bubble in the final weld. For
a medium or large aspect ratio keyhole welding process, bubble
was found in the final weld. No validation of the prediction was
presented in the paper. Pang et al. [28] developed a sharp interface
method to capture free surface and investigate weld pool dynam-
ics. The mechanism of keyhole stability was studied and it was
found that variation of the keyhole depth could qualitatively reflect
porosity level. However, the model did not explicitly model the
pore formation. Zhao et al. [29] used volume of fluid (VOF) method
to solve multi-phase problems and built a gas–liquid–solid coupled
model. But the adopted heat source model was not accurate since
it ignored the phenomenon of multiple reflection in deep penetra-
tion. Moreover, the simulation stopped at bubble formation, not
explaining the mechanism of subsequent pore formation. Cho
245
and Na [25,30,31] have done a series of work to develop a compu-
tational simulation model of laser keyhole welding, especially on
heat source model and laser-keyhole interaction. Multiple reflec-
tion was implemented simultaneously with their proposed ray-
tracing technique. The Fresnel absorption model was chosen as
an energy transfer mechanism from laser beam to workpiece. Their
works greatly advanced integrity of numerical modeling of laser
welding processes. Methodologies being developed above, such
as, heat source model and multiple reflection model, have been
implemented into commercial fluid mechanics software, FLOW3D,
for laser welding process simulation. Such developed FLOW3D
software is used in our study to model keyhole dynamics and pore
formation.
In the following sections, effect of weld speed and laser inclina-
tion angle on porosity formation are studied using numerical pro-
cess simulations and validated by experimental test. The welding
process parameters are so designed that adequate and similar pen-
etration in the overlap joints are ensured for all the test to avoid
keyhole depth effect. Moreover, the welding processes are modeled
using the laser module in Flow 3D which considers multi-reflection
and Fresnel absorption of laser beam to simulate the remote laser
welding of AA5182. Keyhole dynamics, melt flow and pore forma-
tion under different welding process parameters are discussed to
investigate mechanism of porosity formation. The findings are
summarized in the conclusion section.
2. Materials and experimental procedure
AA5182 material was chosen in this study due to its widespread
commercial usage and its susceptibility to welding porosity. The
elemental concentrations of major alloying additives are listed in
Table 1. The material is much more susceptible to porosity forma-
tion than 6xxx Al alloys during a keyhole mode welding. This is
because the Mg element in AA5182 has the low vaporization point
of 1090 °C.
As we have mentioned before, there are two types of porosity
involved in Al welding. Fig. 1 shows a cross sectional picture of a
typical 5182 Al joint welded by a remote laser welding process
with no filler wire and no shielding gas. The pore shown in the
rectangle a is a typical keyhole-induced pore, which has irregular
shape with traces of fluid flow on the inner wall. The keyhole-
induced pores are the focus of the study. On the other hand, the
pore shown in the rectangle b is induced by metallurgical factors.
It has spherical shape with very smooth inner face. The metallurgi-
cal factor-induced pores are generated due to low boiling point ele-
ments such as H and Mg in Al alloys or due to surface
contaminations of the sheets. It is not a major issue in AA5182
welding and will not be studied here. Picture in the rectangle c
shows that the keyhole-induced irregular pore may also serve as
a cracking nucleation point under stress, weakening the joint
strength and fatigue life.
Fig. 2 gives schematics of the remote laser welding process,
which we use to laser stitch AA5182 overlap joints in the study.
The laser beam in the figure is from an IPG 6kw continuum wave
fiber laser system, and the two galvo mirrors are contained in a
remote laser welding optics. The material stackup is a 1.0 mm
AA5182 plate on top of a 2.0 mm AA5182 plate. The welding is per-
formed with beam’s focus plane on the top surface of the top sheet,
Table 1
Chemical composition of AA5182 Al alloy.
Element Al Mg Mn
Weight % 95.2 4.5 0.3
246 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256

Fig. 1. Pictures of weld porosities in laser-welded Al joint’s cross section.

change and melt dynamics are directly modeled in the mathemat-

ical models for the process simulations. The plasma and vapor
dynamics are not modeled directly but the effects are considered
in the model.

3.1. Laser model

The laser beam profile is assumed to be characterized by the

type of Gaussian-like axisymmetric distribution. The distribution
equation of laser energy is described by:
(
 )
2
r
q ¼ Q  exp  ð1Þ
rb

where q denotes heat density function, Q is heat density value at the

beam center, r is the radial coordinate and rb is laser beam radius at
focus plane. Fig. 4(a) plots normalized laser energy distribution
Fig. 2. Schematic of remote laser lap welding process on AA5182 1 mm + 2 mm curve along radius direction. When the laser energy model is used
plates. in Flow3D analysis, the energy is dispersed to discrete grids, as
shown in Fig. 4(b). If the center of the grid cell is covered by the laser
beam, the energy density is assumed to be uniform within the cell
and the beam spot diameter of 0.6 mm. The joints are laser stitched and equal to its value at the cell center. Each cell is deemed as a
in a 25 mm straight line. ray of laser. If the center of the cell is not covered by the laser beam,
In order to study the process susceptibility to porosity forma- its laser energy is deemed as zero. The accuracy of the energy disper-
tion in remote laser welding of Al 5182 sheets, a wide range of sion is determined by the number of grids. As we know, the accuracy
laser welding process parameters are tested. The process parame- of laser energy input directly affects the temperature distribution,
ters are so designed that they lead to similar weld penetration the calculation of recoil pressure and consequently the keyhole
depth. The effect of welding speed and beam inclination angle on shape and melt flow behavior. Therefore, it is suggested to have
porosity formation are tested. The inclination angle is defined as the meshes covered by the laser beam fine enough so that the energy
the angle between laser beam and material’s surface normal. distribution of laser beam is accurately represented on the discrete
Table 2 gives the process parameters used in the test cases. After grids and the integration reflects the actual laser energy being used.
test, the samples are cut along the center of the weld lines to show Multiple reflection, shown in Fig. 5, is a unique phenomenon in
the cross sections of the welds and examined for porosities. deep-penetration laser welding which complicates the calculation
of laser energy distribution. Real-time multiple reflection model in
Flow3D is achieved by using a ray tracing technique [25]. The vol-
3. Mathematical model ume of fluid (VOF) method is adopted for free surface tracking with
the continuously updated keyhole’s free surface. If the incoming
Laser welding process involves laser-material interaction, phase ray direction and surface normal are known, the reflected ray can
change, fluid and gas flow, heat and mass transfer. Fig. 3 lists major be calculated by the following equation:
physical phenomenon in the process, where laser heat input, phase
xRðnÞ ¼ xIðnÞ  2ðxIðnÞ  NðnÞÞNðnÞ ð2Þ
where n denotes the nth reflection calculation, xI(n) is the direction
Table 2 of nth incoming ray, N(n) is surface normal and xR(n) is the direction
Welding process parameters.
of nth reflected ray.
Laser power Welding speed Beam inclination During the process of multiple reflection, each reflection is
(kW) (m/min) angle (°) accompanied by energy absorption which is called Fresnel absorp-
Effect of welding 2.5 3 0 tion. This Fresnel absorption is a function of incident angle of the
speed 5 10 0 beam and a laser-dependent and material-dependent coefficient.
6 12 0
The absorption rate can be described as:
Effect of beam 2.5 3 15 !
1 1 þ ð1  e cos /ðnÞ Þ e2  2e cos / þ 2 cos2 /ðnÞ
2
inclination angle 2.5 3 0
að/ðnÞ Þ ¼ 1  þ
2.5 3 15
2 1 þ ð1 þ e cos /ðnÞ Þ2 e2 þ 2e cos / þ 2 cos2 /ðnÞ
3 3 30
3 3 45 ð3Þ
 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256 247

Fig. 3. Major physical phenomenon in the laser welding process.

(a) Normalized energy distribution along radius direction

(b) Discretization of laser energy into discrete rays

Fig. 4. Energy distribution of a laser beam model.

where /(n) is the angle between the nth incident ray and the nth
surface normal, and e is a coefficient determined by laser type and
material properties. The absorption rate a calculated in Eq. (3) is
used in each reflection point to calculate the absorbed energy and
the lost energy in the process of reflection. That is, the absorbed
energy after the nth reflection is calculated by qðnÞ ¼ q0ðn1Þ  að/ðnÞ Þ,
where q(n) represents the nth absorbed energy and q0ðn1Þ represents
the reflected energy from (n  1)th reflection, which is the incident
ray for the nth reflection. By repeating the above steps, multiple-
reflect could be achieved.
During laser welding, laser-induced plasma plume plays a cru-
cial role in the energy transfer of laser beam. It could defocus the
laser energy, decrease the weld penetration and even change the
welding mode from deep penetration welding to heat conduction
welding if the plume is not suppressed appropriately. The laser
type and substrate materials are the decisive factors of generation
of plasma plume. In the modeling, the effect of plasma on laser
energy absorption is implicitly considered in Eq. (3) in which coef-
ficient e is determined by laser type and material properties.
3.2. Evaporation model
Evaporation is an important phenomenon in laser welding
which involves gas–liquid interface, heat transfer, mass loss and
recoil pressure. Modeling of gas–liquid interface is challenging in
the simulation. To simplify the problem, the gas phase is not
explicitly modeled in the study. Nevertheless, the effect of evapo-
ration is fully considered. Heat and mass loss due to evaporation
248 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256



Tv
PR ¼ A exp B 1  ð8Þ
T
where PR is recoil pressure, A and B are two coefficients related to
material properties and equal to 80,000 and 5, respectively, for Al
alloys. Tv is evaporation temperature, T is temperature of keyhole
wall.

3.4. Numerical calculation procedure

The melt moving velocity, material temperature and pressure

are calculated by solving the conservation of momentum, conser-
vation of energy and material continuity equations. Basic proce-
dure for advancing a solution through one small time increment
Dt is as follows:

(1) Explicit approximations of the conservation of momentum

are used to compute the first guess for new time-level veloc-
ities using the initial conditions or previous time-level val-
ues for pressure.
(2) To satisfy the mass continuity, when the implicit option is
used, the pressure is iteratively adjusted at each cell and
the velocity variation generated by the change of pressure
Fig. 5. Schematic of multiple reflection inside the keyhole. is added to the velocities computed in Step (1).

are calculated in the evaporation model. The resulted recoil pres-

sure is described in the next section.
The energy loss due to evaporation could be expressed as:
qloss ¼ C l ðT  T l Þ þ Lv ð4Þ
where Cl is special heat of the liquid phase, Tl is liquidus tempera-
ture, Lv is latent heat of evaporation, T is the temperature on surface.
The mass loss or transfer due to evaporation is calculated based
on the kinetic theory:
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
M
M net ¼ Raccom ðPsat  Pv Þ ð5Þ
2pRT bdy l

where Raccom is the accommodation coefficient, R is gas constant, M

is the molecular weight of the vapor, Tbdy is the average liquid tem-
perature along the surface of the molten metal, Pv is vapor pressure,
Psat
l is the saturation pressure at the local temperature computed Fig. 6. Illustration of the mesh used in the simulation.
from the Clausius-Clapeyron Equation:
" #
1
T
 T1v 1
Psat
l ¼ Pv 1  exp  ð6Þ Table 3
E Thermo-physical properties of AA5182 and related parameters used in the simulation.

Nomenclature Symbol Unite Value

where (Pv1, Tv1) is a point on the saturation curve and E is an expo-
nent constant given by Eq. (7): Thermal conductivity of the solid ks W m1 K1 268.3
phase
ðc  1ÞC v Thermal conductivity of the liquid kl W m1 K1 125.4
E¼ ð7Þ phase
Lv
Special heat of the solid phase Cs J kg1 K1 940.4
where c ¼ CCvP , CP is the specific heat at constant pressure of the Special heat of the liquid phase Cl J kg1 K1 1097
Dynamic viscosity m Pa s 0.0013
vapor, Cv is the specific heat at constant volume of the vapor, Lv is Surface tension c0 N m1 0.62
latent heat of evaporation. Temperature coefficient of surface Ksur N m1 K 2.25  104
tension
Ambient temperature T0 K 300
3.3. Recoil pressure model
Thermal expansion coefficient b K1 9.18  105
Solid density qs kg m3 2645
The evaporation occurring on the walls of the keyhole caused by Liquid density ql kg m3 2330
laser heating is accompanied by a recoil force acting on the oppo- Convective heat transfer coefficient h0 W m2 K4 20
site direction of vapor ejection. The evaporation recoil pressure is Radiation emissivity e 0.9
Stefan-Boltzmann constant r W m2 K4 5.67  108
proportional to the saturated vapor pressure, which depends on Latent heat of fusion Lf J kg1 3.97  105
the melt’s surface temperature. There is a coefficient between Latent heat of vapor Lv J kg1 1.05  107
recoil pressure and saturated vapor pressure depending on mate- Solidus temperature Ts K 809.15
rial properties. In this study, the following model is used to calcu- Liquidus temperature Tl K 910.15
Boiling temperature Tg K 2720
late the recoil pressure,
 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256
(3) When there is a free surface or fluid interface, the VOF
method would be used to track a new fluid configuration.
(4) Energy equation is solved by means of an explicit option to
achieve the new temperature distribution, and the thermal
properties of the melt are updated.
Fig. 7. Calculated velocity fields and keyhole profile in laser welding (P = 2.5 kW,
v = 3 m/min).
Fig. 8. Process of bubble formation due to keyhole collapsing (P = 2.5 kW, v = 3 m/min): (a) 0.2340 s; (b) 0.2345 s; (c) 0.2350 s; and (d) 0.2355 s.
249
4. Numerical simulation and result discussions
Our numerical model consists two regions: a fluid region of
30 mm  4 mm  3 mm representing the two sheet stackup and
a void region on top of the fluid region for tracking free surface
deformation. The transient keyhole evolution, heat transfer
and fluid flow behavior in laser welding are solved in coupled
equations with very small time step (typically around
1.0  107 s–1.0  106 s) determined by the mesh size. Fig. 6
gives the meshes used in the process simulation. Considering the
expensive computational cost of the coupled simulation, the min-
imum mesh size is set to be 0.1 mm. Table 3 lists thermo-physical
properties of AA5182 used in the simulation.
4.1. Mechanism of keyhole-induced pore formation
The melt flow from the simulation is shown in Fig. 7. Downward
flow is observed in the molten pool in front of the keyhole and also
in the molten pool near the top surface behind the keyhole. At the
keyhole bottom, the direction of melt flow changes from down-
ward to rearward. A strong clockwise vortex is formed in the rear
part of molten pool. The downward flow is driven by the resultant
force of recoil pressure, surface tension, gravity and hydrodynamic
pressure. The clockwise vortex is caused by the impact of the
incoming liquid from the bottom of keyhole and downward flow
behind the rear wall of the keyhole. On the upper part of the melt,
there is a slight trend of backward flow. Such flow trend is caused
by Marangoni effect [32] that could be explained by surface ten-
sion gradient. Due to small value of temperature coefficient of sur-
face tension and the strong clockwise vortex, the backward flow is
almost inhibited in this case.
250 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256

During welding, the laser beam shines on different locations of
keyhole’s wall depending on the keyhole profile and laser beam’s
relative position. This causes temperature variations on the key-
hole wall. The recoil pressure and surface tension are both temper-
ature dependent. That is, the higher the surface temperature the
higher the recoil pressure and lower the surface tension. As a
result, the melt flow in high temperature region is much stronger
than the melt flow in low temperature region. Fig. 8(a)–(d) displays
one typical process of bubble formation under keyhole fluctuation
from our simulation. The arrows in the picture are vectors of melt
velocity. When the keyhole is shallow as shown in Fig. 8(a), the
bottom of keyhole is close to beam’s focal plane and absorbs large
amount of the laser heat. As a result, an extreme high temperature
region formed at the bottom of keyhole which leads to large recoil
pressures pushing the keyhole bottom downward and forming a
deep keyhole, shown in Fig. 8(b). The lower rear keyhole wall is
now at high temperature and generating recoil pressure pushing
the lower melt behind the keyhole flow backward and causing a
vortex. When it comes to Fig. 8(c), the vortex melt flow becomes
so accelerated that it becomes unstable. Driven by the strong
clockwise flow, the melt behind upper rear keyhole wall flows
toward the front keyhole wall, causing a keyhole collapsing, shown

B
B

Fig. 9. Process of bubble being brought into the rear part of molten pool under the effect of melt flow (P = 2.5 kW, v = 3 m/min): (a) 0.3340 s; (b) 0.3345 s; (c) 0.3350 s; (d)
0.3355 s; (e) 0.3360 s; (f) 0.3365 s; (g) 0.3370 s; (h) 0.3375 s; and (i) 0.3380 s.

Fig. 10. Three necessary steps for keyhole-induced pore formation.

 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256 251

in Fig. 8(d). The gas in the keyhole is trapped by the collapsing and
a bubble is formed at the bottom of keyhole. The whole process
lasts about 1.5 ms. Formation of a bubble may not lead to porosity
as long as the bubble can merge back with keyhole or float out
from the free surface.
Fig. 9(a)–(i) shows the process of the formed bubble floating to
the back of the molten pool. The direction of arrows in the figure
show the melt flowing direction and the length of arrow represents
the magnitude of flow velocity. The color represents the tempera-
ture with red being hot and blue being cool. The progressive illus-
tration in Fig. 9 clearly shows the bubble is gradually pushed
backward by the strong melt flow under the combined effect of
vortex flow and surface forces on the keyhole wall. The bubble
stays the similar size during the process indicating not much
change on its temperature. Once the bubble moves to the lower
back of the molten pool, it is easily captured by the fast approach-
ing solidification front and becomes a pore. Fig. 9(e) shows a sec-
ond keyhole-induced bubble being formed. Fortunately, before
this second bubble is floating away from the keyhole bottom, it
is captured by the reopened keyhole as shown in Fig. 9(f)–(g). Pore
formation is hence prevented.
In summary, the keyhole collapsing due to strong melt flow is
the cause of initial bubble formation. The formation of a bubble
does not necessarily lead to a pore as the bubble can be merged
with the re-opened keyhole or float out from the free surface. How-
ever, when the bubble is brought from the bottom of keyhole to the
lower back of the molten pool behind the keyhole by the strong
vortex flow, it is in great danger of being captured by the solidifi-
cation front since Al has high thermal conductivity and thus fast
moving solidification front. Also, Al’s melt has strong vortex flow.
Together they make almost impossible for the bubble sitting in
the lower back of molten pool to escape. When the bubble is cap-

Fig. 11. Distribution of porosity in longitudinal weld cross sections from following welding cases: (a) P = 2.5 kW, v = 3 m/min; (b) P = 5.0 kW, v = 10 m/min; and (c)
P = 6.0 kW, v = 12 m/min.

Fig. 12. Distribution of porosity in longitudinal welding sections from simulations with following sets of parameters: (a) P = 2.5 kW, v = 3 m/min; (b) P = 5.0 kW, v = 10 m/
min; and (c) P = 6.0 kW, v = 12 m/min.
252 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256
tured by the solidification front, a pore is formed. Fig. 10 summa-
rizes the three necessary steps for keyhole-induced porosity for-
mation: bubble forming, bubble being brought into the lower
back of molten pool behind the keyhole and bubble being captured
by solidification front. Prevention of pore formation can be
achieved by interrupting any one of these three steps. For example,
keeping the keyhole not collapsing can prevent the occurrence of
the first step and a quiescent melt flow can inhibit the Step 2 inci-
Fig. 13. Porosity area ratio at different laser power and weld speed based on
process simulations.
Fig. 14. Predicted keyhole depth evolution curves (a) and keyhole width evolution curves (b) under different parameters.
dent. Effect of various welding process parameters on these three
steps will be discussed next.
4.2. Effect of laser power and weld speed
In general, if we only increase welding speed among all the pro-
cess parameters, the porosity formation decreases in the joints.
This is because the increased welding speed leads to reduced pen-
etration in the material and hence reduced keyhole depth, which is
beneficial for keyhole stability. However, adequate penetration is
crucial to ensure joint strength. Therefore, in the study of effect
of process parameters on pore formation, we increase the laser
power together with the welding speed so that penetration depths
are kept similar among all the test shown in Table 2. Fig. 11(a)–(c)
displays pictures of longitudinal cross sections of physical welds
generated with the three combinations of laser power and welding
speed for studying effect of the welding speed. The three cases lead
to similar weld penetrations as shown in the cross sectional pic-
tures. Fig. 12(a)–(c) gives the corresponding weld cross sections
predicted by the numerical simulations. The predicted penetra-
tions agree with the physical ones very well. The weld in Fig. 11
(a) is welded with low power at a low speed: P = 2.4 kW and
v = 3 m/min. Many large keyhole-induced pores are shown near
the bottom of the weld nugget. The predicted weld cross section
in Fig. 12(a) also shows large pores near the weld bottom. The weld
in Fig. 11(b) is generated with power being 5 kW and speed being
10 m/min. Keyhole-induced pores are not observed. The corre-
sponding predicted result in Fig. 12(b) shows no pore, either. The
weld in Fig. 11(c) is created with power being 6 kW and a high
welding speed being 12 m/min. No keyhole-induced pore is
observed in both physical weld and predicted weld shown in
Fig. 12(c). Fig. 13 plots the porosity area ratio which is ratio of pore
area to the whole weld cross section area calculated from the pro-
cess simulations for various combinations of power and speed. It
clearly shows that with weld speed and laser power increased,
the formation of porosities is significantly suppressed.
 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256 253

To understand why high welding speed helps to prevent the
pore formation, we use our process simulations to check the effect
of weld speed and laser power on keyhole dynamics. The variations
of keyhole width and depth during the welding process are shown
in Fig. 14, where the width is measured at the keyhole opening. The
keyhole width curves show that high power and high speed lead to
keyholes with larger opening which helps to prevent keyhole col-
lapsing. Also, the keyhole depth curves show that high power
and high speed leads to much more stable keyholes with little fluc-
tuation in depth. Large fluctuation in keyhole depth is shown in
low speed and low power case although the weld penetrations
are similar in two cases. The large fluctuation in keyhole depth is
an indication of dynamic change of laser energy on the keyhole
wall, which is caused by violent change of keyhole shape and also
very likely occurrences of keyhole collapsing. The physical weld
profile in Fig. 11(a) also displays a little higher undulation at the
weld bottom compared to the smooth weld bottom line in Fig. 11
(c) with high power and high speed.
We then look at melt dynamics to study the cause of keyhole
dynamics. Fig. 15(a) and (b) gives predicted velocity fields and
temperature distributions in the molten pools for both low speed
and high speed cases. The position of laser beam relative to keyhole
surfaces are also illustrated. It shows that compared with the case
of low power and low speed, the case of high power and high weld
speed leads to a much longer molten pool behind the keyhole. The
long and large molten pool is beneficial for bubbles to escape if
there is any. Also, the long and large molten pool has large momen-
tum to resist any interrupting force from the keyhole wall and
hence less likely to become turbulent. This is confirmed by the
velocity vectors plotted in Fig. 15, where the melt flow of the right
large molten pool is much more quiescent compared to the left
small pool which is very turbulent. The quiet melt flow also
reduces heat loss due to convective heat change and contributes
to maintaining large melt pool. Furthermore, Fig. 15 shows the
keyhole’s overall opening from top to bottom is much wider at
high power and high speed than at low power and low speed. This
is because at high weld speed and high power the fast moving laser
beam advances the keyhole’s front wall forward while the large
and quiet rear molten pool helps to keep the rear wall stable, not
rushing toward the front wall. The laser position relative to key-
hole wall also plays important role in the melt dynamics. At high
welding speed, the laser beam shines mainly on the front wall of
the keyhole and the resulted recoil pressure is mainly applied on
the front wall, helping to advance the front wall while not adding
large disturbance to the rear melt flow. On the other end, at low
power and low speed, laser beam shines on both front and rear
wall. Its irradiation on the rear keyhole wall aggravates turbulent
flow of the rear molten pool, which in turn exacerbates the keyhole

Fig. 15. Predicted velocity fields and temperature distribution in the molten pools, and laser’s position relative to keyhole surface for: (a) P = 2.5 kW, v = 3 m/min and (b)
P = 6 kW, v = 12 m/min.

Fig. 16. Pore area percentage at different inclination angle: (a) experiment results and (b) simulation results.
254 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256
instability and leads to keyhole collapsing, and hence bubble for-
mation. In summary, high speed and high power welding inhibits
the occurrence of Step 1-bubble formation by maintaining keyhole
opening during the process, and also prevents the occurrence of
Step 2-bubble floating to the rear melt pool by creating a quiet
melt flow. In addition, the process inhibits the bubble being cap-
tured by solidification line by having a large long molten pool
which gives time for the bubble to escape. Pore formations are thus
prevented.
4.3. Effect of laser beam’s inclination angle
Laser beam’s inclination angle is another important parameter
in laser welding. In a conventional laser welding which welds at
a close distance, to prevent laser light’s back reflection, the laser
beam inclination angle is usually maintained at a value between
10° and 5°. That is, the beam pointing backward and in a drag-
ging mode. While in remote laser welding, where the optics is far
away from the welding surface, a zero inclination angle is permit-
ted. During welding, since the laser beam’s movement is achieved
by a galvo mirror’s rotation, the inclination angle in the process has
a small variation during sweeping. Assuming the optics is 500 mm
away from the material surface, for a 25 mm long stitch, the
sweeping angle is 2.87°. That is, the inclination angle changes from
0° to 1.5°, which is negligibly small. However, we expect to see a
large laser beam inclination angle has impact on keyhole orienta-
Fig. 17. Calculated pore distribution in weld cross sections for the following cases: (a) 2.5 kW, 3 m/min and 15°; (b) 2.5 kW, 3 m/min and 0°; (c) 2.5 kW, 3 m/min and 15°;
(d) 3 kW, 3 m/min and 30°; and (e) 3 kW, 3 m/min and 45°.
tion and consequently keyhole dynamics and pore formation. In
the proposed test listed in Table 2, inclination angles from 15°
to 45° are tested to see their effects on pore formation. We have
also used the process simulation to study the physics in the pro-
cess. Laser welding with beam inclination angles being 15°, 0°,
15°, 30° and 45° are modeled to see the angle’s effect on pore for-
mation. In order to maintain similar weld penetration, the laser
power increases from 2.5 kW to 3.0 kW for the cases with large
inclination angles of 30° and 45°.
Fig. 16(a) plots the pore area percentages based on the experi-
mental test results and Fig. 16(b) gives the ones based on the sim-
ulations. It is found that the porosity is suppressed with the
increase of the inclination angle, shown in both experimental
results and simulation results. The predicted trend in pore percent-
age is in good agreement with the trend revealed by the physical
test. One thing worth to mention is that since we conduct the test
with an optics at a fixed position, laser beam focal plane has a
noticeable shift during the process when the inclination angle is
large. This is reflected in changes of weld penetration as the shift
of focal plane causes change in laser energy and hence aggravates
keyhole dynamics resulting in collapsing. That is why more pores
are observed in the experimental test. Nevertheless, the overall
trend is in agreement with the simulations which assumes the
focal plane stays on the top material surface. This change of focal
plane can be corrected by programming corresponding optics
movement. Fig. 17(a)–(e) gives predicted pore distribution in lon-
 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256
Fig. 18. Calculated velocity fields and temperature distribution in the molten pools for different inclination angles and laser powers: (a) 2.5 kW, 3 m/min and 15°; (b) 3 kW,
3 m/min and 30°; and (c) 3 kW, 3 m/min and 45°.
gitudinal weld cross sections for inclination angles being 15°, 0°,
15°, 30°, 45°, respectively. A clear decrease of pores are displayed
as the angle increases.
Now let’s examine the melt and keyhole dynamics to under-
stand why the laser inclination angle affects the porosity ratio.
Fig. 18(a)–(c) gives contour plots of the melt temperature and vec-
tor plots of the melt flow around the keyhole for the cases with
inclination angles being 15°, 30° and 45°, respectively. It shows
that the laser beam inclination angle determines the keyhole’s ori-
entation, and affects rear molten pool shape and melt flow. At an
inclination angle being 15°, the laser beam generates a rear molten
pool with a violent vortex flow. The keyhole collapsing is observed
with bubble formation. The turbulent rear molten pool also has a
deep and narrow shape, which makes the bubble easy to be
brought into the rear molten pool but hard to escape from the fast
approaching solidification line. Pore formation is almost inevitable.
At an inclination angle being 30°, the laser beam creates a rear
molten pool with two vortex flow. The lower vortex flow is driven
by the recoil pressure and bottom flow coming from the molten
pool in front of the keyhole. The upper vortex flow is formed
because of Marangoni effect which leads to a backward flow on
molten pool surface. The keyhole’s rear wall in the case of 30° is
less steep compared to the case of 15°. At this position, the keyhole
rear wall is under a composite force pushing the wall backward
and down. As a result, the melt flows away from the rear wall as
shown in Fig. 18(b) and two vortex flow are formed at a distance
behind the rear wall. The composite force helps to maintain the
keyhole open while the laser beam keeps the front wall advancing
forward. Consequently, the keyhole collapsing is less likely to occur
and bubbles are less likely to form. When the inclination angle
255
increased to 45°, the generated rear molten pool has a large area
of laminar flow going away from the rear keyhole wall. This is
because at the rear keyhole wall which now has a very shallow
slope, the directions of gravity and recoil pressure become more
aligned, and the resulted force drives the flow downward and
backward. This type of laminar flow greatly prevents the keyhole
collapsing since the melt has to work against the gravity to reach
the upper/front keyhole wall. With an adequate laser power, the
front wall can be held by the laser beam from collapsing down.
As shown in the simulations, the keyhole is maintained open in
the process and pore formation is prevented by inhibiting occur-
rence of Step 1. Also, without a strong vortex flow, Step 2 is inhib-
ited since the bubble is hard to be brought into the rear part of
molten pool. In summary, in the case of small laser inclination
angle, the dynamic recoil pressure and gravity are driving the melt
moving to different directions and causing strong vortex flow, sus-
ceptible to keyhole collapsing. In the case of the large laser inclina-
tion angle, the dynamic recoil pressure and gravity are driving the
melt moving to similar directions and resulting in laminar flow,
preventing keyhole collapsing.
5. Conclusions
So far, we have studied the formation mechanism of keyhole-
induced pores and effect of process parameters on the pore forma-
tion. We started our study by modeling the remote laser welding of
AA5182 to investigate the keyhole and molten pool dynamics and
their relationship with keyhole-induced pore formation. We have
found pore formation is directly reflected in keyhole dynamics
256 R. Lin et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 108 (2017) 244–256
and molten pool dynamics, where violent-melt-flow-induced key-
hole collapsing is the start of bubble formation and the vortex flow
in the molten pool behind the keyhole is the main reason of a bub-
ble entering into the rear molten pool. We concluded that the pore
formation in a weld requires three necessary steps: Step 1, bubble
formation caused by keyhole collapsing; Step 2, bubble being
brought from the keyhole bottom into rear molten pool; Step 3,
the bubble being captured by the solidification front. Prevention
of pore formation can be achieved by interrupting one of the three
steps.
The effect of welding speed and laser beam inclination angle on
pore formation were studied next via both physical test and
numerical process simulation. Mechanism of keyhole induced
porosity formation under various process conditions were investi-
gated. Our key findings are summarized as follows:
1. At high power and high welding speed, the keyhole has large
opening and little fluctuation in depth. The laser beam mainly
shines on the front keyhole wall. The molten pool behind the
keyhole is long and large with quiescent flow, which is greatly
beneficial for maintaining the keyhole open, inhibiting bubbles
to be brought into the rear pool and giving the bubbles time to
escape. All these features inhibit the occurrence of Step 1, Step 2
and Step 3.
2. While at low speed and low power, the keyhole opening is rel-
atively small and the keyhole depth has large fluctuation due to
collapsing. The molten pool behind the keyhole is small and has
turbulent flow. The laser beam shines on both front and rear
keyhole walls. The laser irradiation on the rear keyhole wall
aggravates turbulent flow of molten pool. All these features pro-
mote the occurrence of Step 1, Step 2 and Step 3.
3. The keyhole orientation is determined by the laser beam incli-
nation angle. At a large inclination angle of 45°, the laminar
flow, instead of vortex flow, is observed in the rear part of mol-
ten pool due to the recoil pressure and gravity are working
along the similar directions. The front keyhole wall is held by
the laser beam. These features prevent the occurrence of Step
1 and Step 2. As a result, pore formation is suppressed.
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