High-brightness laser welding of thin-sheet 316 stainless steel

Photolytic iodine laser (PIL), a new industrial laser in the market, offers much higher brightness than existing Nd:YAG and CO2 lasers. PIL has also a unique wavelength (1315 nm) that has not yet been tested for welding applications. In this work, the capabilities of PIL for precision seam welding of 0.1-mm thick sheet of AISI 316 stainless steel in the lap-joint configuration were evaluated. The weld performance data of PIL laser were compared with Nd:YAG and CO2 lasers. The astounding benefits of PIL weld are narrow seam, extremely fine solidification cell structure, fully austenitic microstructure, and small heat-affected-zone (HAZ). These benefits are attributed to the PIL's high brightness that in turn enables achieving small spot size and energy transport through plasma rather than by heat conduction. In contrast, the welds produced by Nd:YAG and CO2 lasers exhibited wider seams, coarser solidification structures, duplex microstructures of austenite and ferrite, and larger HAZ due to slow cooling of the melt, and lateral heat diffusion. Despite the narrow seam, the PIL weld carried a high tensile load (92% that of base metal) and was harder than the base metal. Microstructural analysis revealed that PIL welds exhibited fully austenitic structures and were free from hot cracking. These advantages are consequences of the rapid solidification effects including large undercooling, minimal segregation of impurities to the grain boundaries, and fine grain size.