Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 565–570

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

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

Dynamic keyhole profile during high-power deep-penetration

laser welding
S. Li, G. Chen ∗ , M. Zhang, Y. Zhou, Y. Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan Province 410082, China

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

Article history: Based on a butt-joint configuration assembled from transparent glass and stainless steel, the dynamic
Received 17 July 2013 keyhole profile was observed during 10-kW fiber laser welding. The “gauffers” and vapor flow on the
Received in revised form 24 October 2013 front keyhole wall moved downwards to the bottom of the keyhole. The downward-flowing vapor met
Accepted 25 October 2013
the upward-flowing vapor at the bottom of the keyhole, which resulted in a whirlpool of vapor. The
Available online 4 November 2013
suspended droplets were drove to move in a random fashion by the whirlpool. The fluctuating vapor flow
and pressure were the key factors causing the fluctuating keyhole wall and resulting in a vapor-generated
Keywords:
wave (VGW) on the rear keyhole wall. The dynamic VGW was a very important factor affecting the
Deep-penetration laser welding
Vapor-generated wave
dynamic welding process. When the VGW broke at the keyhole outlet, it was accompanied by swellings,
Dynamic keyhole profile spatter, columns, a decrease of the diameter of keyhole inlet, and a change in the direction of plume.
Spatter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Using a high-power laser source to weld thick steel is a potential
technology for areas such as the aerospace, vehicle, and shipbuild-
ing industries. During high-power laser-welding process, welding
defects are easily generated, such as underfilling, porosity, hump-
ing and undercutting. Some experiments have been performed to
investigate the dynamic welding process and the generation mech-
anism of those defects. Katayama and Kawahito (2009) studied the
phenomena in high-power fiber laser welding and concluded that
the underfilling and the undercutting at the top of the weld pool are
caused by the generating spatter when the weld speed is high, while
the porosity will be generated from the bubbles that form at the tip
of the keyhole when the weld speed is low. Kawahito et al. (2009)
observed the molten pool when the spatter occurred, and pointed
out that the spatter is generated by shear force accompanied by the
vapor plume. Kaplan et al. (2008) investigated the types of spatter
under different weld conditions. The results reveal that the heavy
spatter ejection causes significant underfill, even on the root side.
The periodically strong recoil pressure of the vapor is an impor-
tant factor for accelerating and ejecting the melt to form spatter.
The single unambiguous criterion that determines whether spat-
ter is ejected is whether the local vertical momentum of the melt
exceeds the surface tension forces (Kaplan and Powell, 2011). The
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 0731 88821772; fax: +86 0731 88823899.
E-mail addresses: li.shi.chun@163.com (S. Li), hdgychen@163.com (G. Chen),
hnuzmj@163.com (M. Zhang), fzuzhouyu@126.com (Y. Zhou), zy2100 hn@163.com
(Y. Zhang).
process that generates weld humping has also been observed and
investigated by Fabbro (2010). This work showed that the gener-
ation mechanisms of spatter and humps have a close relationship
to the vapor plume and the extrusive melt. The results of Wang
et al. (2012) indicate that the periodical oscillation of the vapor
plume can be attributed to the oscillation of the keyhole during
high-power fiber laser penetration welding.
As for the physical phenomenon inside the keyhole, Tsukamoto
(2011) has observed the deep-penetration keyhole and the porosity
by using X-rays during electric-beam and CO2 -laser-beam welding.
Kawahito et al. (2009) not only observed the keyhole and porosity
by using X-rays during fiber laser beam welding, they also observed
the molten pool by tracing the trajectories of special particles that
were embedded in the weld sample. The results are helpful for
understanding the transfer of material during laser welding. How-
ever, the vapor flow and melt flow on the keyhole wall still cannot
be distinguished clearly inside the keyhole. Berger et al. (2011)
have observed the phenomena during laser irradiation of water
and ice. The observed porosity and fluid phenomena provide ref-
erence values for metallic welding process. Eriksson et al. (2011)
have observed the front keyhole wall based on a special and com-
plicated method of image processing. Other research has been done
to illustrate the dynamic welding process and physical phenomena
through simulation and theoretical analysis. The porosity genera-
tion and the keyhole collapse, which were caused by the oscillation
of dynamic forces and melt flow inside the keyhole, have been sim-
ulated by Cho et al. (2012). The swelling of the molten pool surface
and the spatter generation were caused by the recoil pressure of the
vapor (Cho and Na, 2007). The hydrodynamical phenomena have
been summarized and analyzed during laser welding by Golubev

0924-0136/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2013.10.019
566 S. Li et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 565–570
Fig. 1. Experimental set-up.
(2003). The dynamic and unstable melt flow on the keyhole wall
and on the molten pool surface is mainly caused by the evaporation
pressure, surface tension, shear force, and viscous force between
the melt layer and vapor flow. The analysis results of Kumar et al.
(2007) revealed that the high Mach number of the melt and vapor
flow follows the high flux of laser energy absorbed in the mate-
rial, which implies that the unstable melt and vapor flow with
high Mach number has a close relationship to the laser energy
absorption. Some of the researchers on our team have also done
some other work to observe the keyhole shape by using a special
transparent material and a digital camera during low-power CO2
laser welding (Zhang et al., 2008). During deep-penetration laser
welding, the keyhole can be distinguished clearly, but the dynamic
processing has not been investigated due to the limitations of the
digital camera. Thus far, the dynamic vapor flow and its effect on
the keyhole profile have not been observed in experiments during
high-power deep-penetration laser welding, and it is still not clear
how the melt inside the keyhole flows out and forms spatter. In
order to observe the dynamic vapor flow and melt flow inside the
keyhole, and to clarify the mechanism by which the melt flows
out and forms spatter, experiments on 10-kW high-power fiber
laser welding were carried out in the present work. The dynamic
physical phenomena inside the keyhole were observed by means of
high-speed video cameras during laser welding. The physical mech-
anism of the dynamic melt flow was also discussed based on the
observation.
2. Experimental set-up
In the experiments, a butt-joint configuration was assembled
from transparent material and steel in order to implement high-
power deep-penetration laser welding. As shown in Fig. 1, a
40 × 40 × 5-mm sheet of type 304 austenitic stainless steel was
clamped to a 40 × 40 × 6-mm piece of GG17 glass. Due to its low
thermal expansion coefficient and excellent thermal shock resis-
tance, the GG17 glass has good weldability and was transparent
during the welding process. From the side view, the weld key-
hole profile and the dynamic plasma/vapor flow could be observed
directly and clearly. The fiber laser source was an IPG Photonics YLS-
10000 with a 10-kW maximum power. The optical fiber laser was
focused on a spot of diameter 0.4 mm through a lens of focal length
300 mm. During the welding process, the laser beam irradiated the
stainless steel sheet close to the edge of the GG17 glass.
High-speed video cameras were used to monitor the fiber laser
welding process. First, the shape of the keyhole and the weld pool
were observed from the top view by using a high-speed video
Table 1
Process parameters during fiber laser welding.
Fiber laser power (P) 10 kW
Welding speed (V) 1.5, 2.5, 3.5 m/min
Defocus distance (Df) 0, −5 mm
camera, a filter (transmitting light at a wavelength of 808 nm),
and an illuminating laser with a wavelength of 808 nm. Then, the
dynamic keyhole profile was observed from the side view by using
a high-speed video camera without filter and illumination. During
the laser welding experiments, the fiber laser power was set to
10 kW. The welding processes were investigated under different
weld speeds. The experimental parameters are shown in Table 1.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Observation from the top view
In Fig. 2(a), the keyhole and the moving spatter could be
observed clearly from the top view. A well-mixed weld pool of
stainless steel and GG17 glass appeared behind the keyhole. The
weld pool clearly occupied much more space on stainless steel
than on glass. This asymmetric weld pool phenomenon is due to
the irradiating position of the laser beam being located mainly on
the stainless steel (as shown in Fig. 2(b)) and the wide difference in
the thermal physical properties between stainless steel and glass.
The specific heat and thermal conductivity of type 304 austenitic
stainless steel are 0.5 Jg−1 K−1 and 16.2 Wm−1 K−1 , respectively.
The specific heat and thermal conductivity of GG17 glass are
0.9 Jg−1 K−1 and 1.2 Wm−1 K−1 , respectively. The different thermal
physical properties of stainless steel and GG17 glass implies that the
heat can transfer faster in the stainless steel than in the GG17 glass.
Thus, much more stainless steel was melted to form the asymmetry
weld pool and keyhole. The asymmetry keyhole existed mainly on
the steel plate and only a small part of keyhole was located on the
glass plate, as shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b) (top picture). At the same
time, owing to the asymmetric weld pool and keyhole shape, the
dynamic laser welding process and the inside keyhole profile can be
observed through the transparent GG17 glass. The corresponding
relationship between the keyhole profile observed from the side
view and the keyhole observed from the top view can be identified
in Fig. 2(b).
3.2. Observation from the side view
Fig. 3 shows the dynamic laser welding process, which was
observed from the side view under the following weld conditions:
P = 10 kW; Df = 0 mm; and V = 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 m/min. The displayed
dynamic characteristics involve the front and rear keyhole wall,
keyhole inlet, spatter, and vapor flow and plume.
As marked in Fig. 3(a), the dynamic front keyhole wall can be
distinguished by the transitory and small-size “gauffers”. The gauf-
fers moved downwards along the front wall to the keyhole bottom
quickly. Taking the analysis results presented by Golubev (2003)
into consideration, the rapid growth of gauffers is due to the effect
of evaporating pressure, and these gauffers may be torn off from the
front keyhole wall to form micro-droplets. In the observed images,
some suspended droplets of the melt moved in a random motion
under the effect of the vapor flow. When the upward-flowing vapor
met the downward-flowing vapor at the bottom of keyhole, the
whirlpool of vapor was generated, which drove the suspended
droplets to move in a random fashion. The suspended droplets and
vapor whirlpool can be seen in the attached video.
On the other hand, a “gauffer” with large size, which is called
the vapor-generated wave (VGW) in this paper, has been observed
 S. Li et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 565–570
Fig. 2. Keyhole profile and weld pool observed from the top and side views (P = 10 kW, V = 1.5 m/min, Df = −5 mm). (a) Top view and (b) the corresponding side view.
on the rear keyhole wall. The VGW started at the bottom or the
middle of the keyhole, and moved to the top of keyhole. In Fig. 3(a),
the distance between two VGWs is about 6 mm, which is much big-
ger than the small-scale capillary waves (of 10−3 –10−2 cm length)
analyzed by Golubev (2003). When the VGW reached the outlet
of the keyhole, swellings, spatter, or columns were generated at
the keyhole outlet. Then, when the spatter and columns moved out
of the keyhole, they were driven by the shear force of the ejected
vapor plume (Kawahito et al., 2009) and the differential pressure
between the plume and atmosphere, and moved towards the rear
weld pool. Moreover, when the VGW reached the keyhole outlet,
the outlet diameter of the keyhole decreased, and the direction of
the ejected vapor plume changed from oblique to the weld pool
rear to vertical. Meanwhile, because of the narrowed outlet and
the high-pressure ejected vapor flow, some spatter was generated
at the front of the keyhole outlet, as shown in Fig. 3(b). In contrast,
the spatter generated at the front of the keyhole had a smaller size
than that generated at the rear of the keyhole.
The dynamic characteristics of welding processes at different
weld speeds were compared. When the weld speed was 1.5 m/min,
the keyhole depth was about 13.5 mm, as shown in Fig. 3(a) and
(b). Under this condition, two VGWs may exist on the rear key-
hole wall at the same time. When the weld speeds are 2.5 m/min
and 3.5 m/min, the keyhole depths are about 11.5 mm and 8.0 mm,
respectively. There is only one VGW on the rear keyhole wall, as
567
shown in Fig. 3(c) and (d). That means that the generation of the
VGW is based on a sufficient keyhole depth during the high-power
deep-penetration laser welding. That is why the large waves have
not occurred during low-power thin-plate laser welding. It has also
been found in the experiments that only when the weld speed is
1.5 m/min will the spatter be generated at the front of the key-
hole outlet. This result is attributed to the thicker melt layer on the
front keyhole wall during lower-speed welding. In contrast, dur-
ing higher-speed welding, the melt layer on the front keyhole wall
is thinner, which makes it difficult for the ejected vapor plume to
extrude the melt layer when the VGW reaches the outlet of the
keyhole.
3.3. Discussion of the mechanisms
The hydrodynamic phenomena of the liquid wall have been
summarized and analyzed by Golubev (2003). The hydrodynamic
instabilities result in the gauffers, capillary microwaves, micro-
droplets, and melt humps. The mechanisms governing these
instabilities are based on phenomena like thermo-capillary,
capillary evaporative, Kelvin–Helmholtz and Rayleigh–Taylor
instabilities. These phenomena are attributed to the interac-
tion effects of gravity, surface tension, the viscosity force, and
recoil pressure. In the above observations, based on the capillary-
evaporative instability of the melt layer on the front keyhole wall,
568 S. Li et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 565–570

Fig. 3. Observation images from the side view during fiber laser welding. (a) Dynamic gauffers on the front keyhole wall and two VGWs occurring on the rear keyhole wall
at the same time; (b)–(d) the dynamic process under weld speeds of V = 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 m/min, respectively.

gauffers are generated. Because of the evaporative pressure and
melt gravity, the gauffers move downwards to the bottom of the
keyhole. As shown in the revised Fig. 4, the relative lower pres-
sure area existed underneath the gauffer where there is no direct
laser irradiation. Furthermore, the laser-induced evaporation on
the gauffer could lead to a downward-expanding vapor. At the
front keyhole wall, part of vapor flowed to the low pressure area.
At the bottom of keyhole, the laser-induced evaporation caused
an upward-flowing vapor. When the upward-flowing vapor met
the downward-flowing vapor, the whirlpool of vapor was gener-
ated. Therefore, the random-moving droplets were observed at the
keyhole bottom.
The dynamic VGW on the rear keyhole wall has a larger size
than the gauffers generated on the front keyhole wall, which
means that the formation mechanism of the VGW is different from
that of the gauffers. To explain the formation mechanism of the
VGW, the force balance on the surface of the rear keyhole wall
is analyzed in more detail. During the laser welding process, the
evaporation of material happens continually. The nonuniform dis-
tribution of laser energy absorbed on the keyhole wall (Cheng et al.,
2012) caused a nonuniform evaporation process, and also caused
the nonuniform ionization of the high-pressure keyhole plasma.
Thus, the vapor pressure fluctuated inside the keyhole. When the
downward-flowing vapor on the front keyhole wall combined with
 S. Li et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 565–570
Fig. 4. Downward-moving gauffers on the front keyhole wall.
the upward-flowing vapor, the flow field of the vapor became
unstable and fluctuated rapidly. The ideal state of equilibrium of
the keyhole wall was broken, and the initial wave was generated
on the rear keyhole wall due to the friction force between the vapor
and melt flow and the fluctuating pressure of the vapor flow. The
complex phenomena inside the keyhole and the effective form of
forces on the VGW surface are shown in Fig. 5(a). The force balances
of particles on the keyhole wall are indicated in Fig. 5(b) and are
illustrated by the following formulas.
Fig. 5. Generation process of the wave. (a) Vapor flow inside the keyhole and the forces on the VGW; (b) force balance of the particles on the rear keyhole wall; (c) the
generation, growth and breaking process of the VGW.
569
Force balance of particles under the ideal state of equilibrium:
Horizontal direction, Pm + Pv = 0 (1)
Vertical direction, Ff + G + Vyt × m = 0 (2)
Force balance of particle on the surface of the VGW:
Horizontal direction, Pmx + Pvx + Ffx + Fsx + Vxt × m = 0 (3)
Vertical direction, Pmy + Pvy + Ffy + Fsy + G + Vyt × m = 0 (4)
Here Pm and Pv are the forces from the pressure of the melt
pool and vapor, respectively. Ff is the friction force at the interface
between the vapor and melt layer. Fs is the surface tension at the
interface between the vapor and melt layer. Pmx , Pvx , Ffx , and Fsx are
the components along the x-axis. Pmy , Pvy , Ffy , and Fsy are the com-
ponents along the y-axis. Vx and Vy are the velocity components
along the x-axis and y-axis, respectively. Vx t and Vy t are the deriva-
tives of the velocity components with respect to time. G is the force
from gravity. m is the mass of particle on the keyhole wall. As shown
in Fig. 5(b), compared to the wall surface under the ideal state of
equilibrium, the keyhole wall surface was oblique when the VGW
occurred. The oblique keyhole wall indicates that the force balances
are more complicated. Compared to the force balance under equi-
librium, the horizontal velocity has been introduced into the force
balance on the surface of the VGW. When Eq. (1) is taken into con-
sideration, the force balance on the horizontal direction was broken
by the fluctuation of either the Pm or Pv forces. The horizontal veloc-
ity component was generated by the difference of Pm and Pv to
form a new force balance like Eq. (3), and the oblique surface of the
VGW was generated. The vapor flow inside the keyhole has been
observed to fluctuate rapidly. It can be concluded that the fluctuat-
ing vapor was the key active factor causing the destruction of the
force balance and the generation of the VGW on the keyhole wall.
570 S. Li et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 214 (2014) 565–570
The growth mechanism of the VGW depended on the interac-
tion effects between the fluctuating vapor flow and vapor pressure,
the surface tension, the gravity of the melt, and the hydrostatic
and hydrodynamic pressure of the melt on the rear keyhole wall.
The increasing kinetic energy of the VGW mainly comes from the
upward-flowing vapor. With the continual evaporation, the vapor
flows upward continually, accompanied by a fluctuating pressure.
The energy of the vapor flow is then continually transferred to the
VGW to increase its size.
When the VGW became bigger, at the front of the wave, there
was a hollow where the vapor was able to accumulate. The vapor
accumulating in the hollow at the front of the wave was ejected out
and drove the melt to form swellings or spatter, when the wave was
close to the keyhole outlet. When the wave reached the keyhole
outlet, not only did the outlet diameter and the plume direction
change, the wave also began to break. Fig. 5(c) shows the genera-
tion, growth, and breaking process of the VGW on the rear keyhole
wall.
During laser welding, the wave movement of the VGW ended
when it reached the keyhole outlet. However, because the melt
particles on the surface of the VGW had been accelerated to a
high velocity inside the keyhole, the melt was able to keep moving
upward. Then, swelling of the melt occurred at the keyhole outlet,
after which the swelling moved back to the molten pool to form
a surface wave. As shown in Fig. 5(c), when the VGW absorbed
enough kinetic energy from the vapor flow before reaching the key-
hole outlet, it broke up to form columns and spatter. Because of that
effect, the vertical velocity and acceleration of particles on the VGW
surface were high enough for the particles to escape the binding of
gravity and surface tension.
4. Conclusions
In order to observe the dynamic melt flow and dynamic key-
hole profile inside the keyhole, a butt-joint was assembled from
a piece of transparent GG17 glass and a 304 austenitic stainless
steel sheet for experiments on high-power deep-penetration laser
welding. The following conclusions can be drawn from this study:
(1) The well-mixed weld pool of glass and steel behind the keyhole
and the inner dynamic process of the keyhole could be clearly
observed by using transparent glass.
(2) The gauffers were generated on the front keyhole wall and
moved to the bottom of the keyhole. The relative lower pres-
sure, which existed underneath the gauffer where there is no
direct laser irradiation, resulted in a downward-flowing vapor
along the front keyhole wall. When the upward-flowing vapor
met the downward-flowing vapor at the keyhole bottom, the
whirlpool of vapor was generated, which drove the suspended
droplets to move in a random fashion.
(3) The observed dynamic VGW on the rear keyhole wall was a very
important factor affecting the whole process of laser welding.
The arrival of the VGW at the keyhole outlet was correlated with
the swellings, spatter, columns, a decrease of the diameter of
keyhole inlet, and a change of the direction of plume.
(4) The fluctuating vapor is considered to be the key active factor
breaking the force balance on the keyhole wall and dominat-
ing the formation and growth of the VGW. The breaking of
the VGW is the key to explain the generation mechanisms
of swellings, spatter, and columns during high-power deep-
penetration laser welding.
(5) In contrast with the result under higher weld speed, there can
be two VGWs occurring on the rear keyhole wall in the deeper
keyhole at the same time under lower weld speed. The gener-
ation of VGWs is based on having a sufficient keyhole depth
during high-power deep-penetration laser welding.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundations of China (No. 51175165, and No. 51175162).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2013.
10.019.
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