Effect of kerf characteristics on microstructures and properties of laser cutting–welding of AA2219 aluminum alloy

The purification of laser keyhole is an important means to remove the oxide layer of laser-MIG hybrid welding of aluminum alloy. Four common auxiliary gases (argon, nitrogen, air and oxygen) were used to prepare kerf with different characteristics, which were defined as argon-weld, nitrogen-weld, air-weld and oxygen-weld. The results show that the remelted layer has little effect on the weld morphology. Microstructures characteristics of Argon-welds and nitrogen-welds were the same as machined welds, while the narrow columnar grain zone and coarsen grains exist in air-welds and oxygen-welds. When the thickness of kerf remelted layer increases, the width of columnar grain zone is reducing and the diameter of equiaxed grain is increasing. The argon-weld is with the best tensile property. When the thickness of remelted layer (d) is less than 70 μm, the tensile strength and elongation of argon-weld can reach 278 MPa and 3.1% respectively, which equivalent to that of machined weld. The tensile property of nitrogen-weld is slightly lower than that of argon-weld because of aluminum nitride impurities. The tensile properties of air-weld and oxygen-weld are low because of a large number of oxide impurities and grain coarsening. Regardless of the types of kerf, when the d is less than 136 μm, the tensile strength reaches more than 250 MPa, which meets the application requirements.