Laser beam welding has been used widely as an important manufacturing process. It can be performed using either pulsed or continuous lasers. A pulsed laser can be used to create weld seams in thin foils by means of overlapping pulses. Typical problems in lap joint welding of thin foils for sealing components in corrosive environment applications include excessive distortion, absence of intimate contact between couple, melt drop through and high level of residual stress. Pulsed laser processing is expected to be the method of choice because it allows more precise heat control compared with continuous laser processing. Experimental investigations were carried out using a pulsed neodymium: yttrium aluminum garnet laser welding to examine the influence of the pulse energy in the characteristics of the weld fillet. The pulse energy was varied from 1.0 to 2.25 J at an increment of 0.25 J and 4 ms pulse duration. The base material used for this study was the AISI 316L stainless steel foil with 100µm thickness. The welds were analyzed by optical microscopy, tensile shear tests and micro hardness. The results indicated that pulse energy control is of considerable importance for thin foil weld quality since it can generate good mechanical properties and discontinuities free weld joints. The ultimate tensile strength of the welded joints increased at first and then decreased with the pulse energy increasing. The process showed very sensitive to the gap between couple.
laser welding; Nd:YAG; austenitic stainless steel; AISI 316L
