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Energy Procedia 107 (2017) 237 – 241

3rd International Conference on Energy and Environment Research, ICEER 2016, 7-11 September
2016, Barcelona, Spain

Numerical Analysis of a Coaxial Impingement Jet and Application

for a Laser Welding of AZ91 Magnesium Alloy with Shielding Gas
Chiraz Boughanmia*, Hatem Mhiria, Philippe Bournotb
a
URTTPI, Thermodynamics and Thermal Unit Industrial Process (UTTPI) National Engineering School of Monastir ENIM, University of
Monastir, 5000 Monastir, Tunisia
b
IUSTI, Technopole of Château-Gombert, 5 city Enrico Fermi, 13013 Marseille, France.

Abstract

A coaxial jet impinging a vertical heated plate is numerically investigated using the Fluent CFD code. The best numerical
simulations are carried out using the k-Ȧ SST turbulence model with considered assumptions. Results obtained by the developed
numerical model have enabled to determine essentially the average Nu numbers relating to certain Reynolds number for H/D=4
position of the heated plate. A comparison of the accuracy of different turbulent models is proposed in this study. Comparisons
with a single jet and with a horizontal disposition are also proposed.
Subsequently, an industrial application is proposed; the laser welding process. For that, a moving distributed heat source model
has been implemented in order to predict temperature distributions through the welding process of a magnesium alloy with the
gas shielding.
© 2016The
© 2017 TheAuthors.
Authors.Published
Publishedby by Elsevier
Elsevier Ltd.Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). committee of the 3rd International Conference on Energy and Environment
under responsibility of the scientific
Research.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International Conference on Energy and Environment Research.

Keywords: coaxial-jet; impingement-jet; laser welding; shielding gas.

1. Introduction

Flows of jet type are involved in many industrial applications: Optimizing cooling blades of aircraft turbines or
electronic components... for an intensive heat transfer or surface treatment, cutting, drilling and welding of metallic

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +0021626356201.

E-mail address: chiraz.boughanmi@gmail.com

1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International Conference on Energy and Environment Research.
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2016.12.138
238 Chiraz Boughanmi et al. / Energy Procedia 107 (2017) 237 – 241

materials for gas overlay through a nozzle. For this reason, in the recent decades, studying this type of flow has
aroused considerable interest giving rise to the production of an extensive bibliography. Various studies on single
impinging jets were conducted for different purposes; For example, Colucci and Viskanta [1] have studied the effect
of the nozzle geometry on the local convective heat transfer in a confined air jet impinging. Narayanan and Yagoobi
[2] determined the heat transfer characteristics of a flat jet nozzle. Effect of the coaxial form has always remained a
raw subject, so a lot of researches on this topic are needed. Among some of these few studies that addressed this
subject, we quote the analysis carried out by Celik and Eren [3] which performed an experimental heat flux study of
an impinging coaxial jet. The present work especially focuses on the application of this coaxial impinging jet as a
Shielding gas, which is an inert gas injected at the laser–material interaction zone in order to avoid oxidation
problems that may occur during the laser welding process.
Dynamics of this inert gas has a significant impact on the molten pool formation and the temperature distribution.
Among some of the few studies that addressed this subject, there are those conducted by Campana et al. [4] who
have studied the influence of shielding gases during an hybrid laser MIG aluminum alloys welding. Results
proposed by these authors demonstrated that there are particular values of the chosen variable allowing to optimize
the gas distribution surrounding the welding zone for more reliable shielding effect. Ancona et al. [5] carried out the
effect of two different shielding gas delivery systems on the aluminum–magnesium alloy laser welding process.
They found that the configuration of the two-pipe gas delivery system ensures the best efficient energy transfer,
producing joints with a higher aspect ratio.

Nomenclature

b, c,e focal radii of the laser beam, maximum depth (m) k thermal conductivity(Wm-1K-1)
Cp specific heat capacity (Jkg-1K-1) kt the turbulent thermal conductivity
h ext convective heat transfer coefficient(Wm-2K-1) R radius(m)
h average convective heat transfer coefficient(Wm-2K-1) D/d outer/inner pipe diameter(m)
S source term Nu average Nusselt number
P total power of the laser beam (W) ȡ density (kgm-3)
Q heat laser source (Wm-3) ȕ thermal expansion
u, v, w velocity components(ms-1) ĭ heat flux (w)
T ext/w ambient/welding temperature (K) ij heat flux density (wm-2)
ᇞH latent heat of fusion (Jkg-1) ܏ efficiency
x, y, z coordinates (m) ı coefficient of surface tension
˜ Ȗ/˜T temperature coefficient of surface tension ȝ dynamic viscosity (kgm-1s-1)

2. Numerical study of a coaxial impinging jet

2.1. Geometrical configuration

The three-dimensional configuration studied shown in Fig. 1, is developed referring to the experimental data
reported by Celik and Eren [3]: The airflow coming from the compressor enters the outer tube, after a specific
distance inside the tube, the flow meets the inner tube.

Fig. 1. (a) Configuration of the jet nozzles impinging the heated plate ; (b) overall view mesh configuration ; (c) zoomed nozzles mesh.
 Chiraz Boughanmi et al. / Energy Procedia 107 (2017) 237 – 241 239

2.2. Mathematical formulation

• The fluid (air) is Newtonian.

• The jet horizontally emitted is axisymmetric.
• The fluid is assumed to be incompressible with constant physical properties (regarded as the average
temperature) except the density which is variable.
• Boussinesq approximations are adopted (ρ-ρ0) ≈ ρ0 β (T-T0).
• The flow regime is assumed turbulent and steady on average in the first part and unsteady in the second one.
In the second part of this study, we also consider that:
• The surface of the weld pool is flat.
• The work piece moves in the positive y-direction with a constant velocity and a fixed laser beam.
Taking account the above assumptions, the general conservation equations are then written:
The mass conservation equation:
∂ρ ∂U i
+ρ = 0 ; i=1,2,3 (1)
∂t ∂xi
The momentum conservation equation:
∂U ∂U j ∂p ∂ ª ∂U j º
ρ i + ρ (U i )=− + «( μ + μ t ) » + Si ; j=1,2,3 (2)
∂t ∂xi ∂xi ∂xi ¬ ∂xi ¼
The energy conservation equation:
∂T ∂T ∂ ª ∂T º ∂ ( ρU j ΔH )
ρC p ( + U j )= «(k + kt ) » + Sj − (3)
∂t ∂x j ∂xi ¬ ∂xi ¼ ∂x j
The numerical resolution of the cited equations is performed with the k-ω SST turbulence model.

2.3. Boundary conditions

• A velocity inlet is imposed at the outer pipe entry.

• The y axis represents the symmetry axis of the calculated domain.
• Atmospheric Pressure is imposed at the boundaries of the domain.
• For the impingement surface, the temperature was prescribed to be uniform and equal to Tw. All other surfaces
were regarded as adiabatic. At the inlet of the solution domain, the temperature was specified to be uniform
and equal to the ambient temperature Tamb.
In the second part of this study, the following boundary conditions are added;
• During the laser welding process, the energy provided by the beam acts both on the surface and in the keyhole
between the two parts to be welded. We used the volumetric heat source of Goldak et al. [7].
This term is identified with Sj in equation (3). ܏=80%. In the weld pool, the Marangoni is negative.
At the upper surface, at the solid region only v = v welding (u=0,w=0) and at the lower surface, convective heat
transfer conditions are used.

2.4. Computational details

The 3D computational domain is developed using the GAMBIT 2.3 software. Fig.1(b) and (c) shows an overall
view of the mesh grid generated. This grid consists of 2000000 volume controls for setting the position with H/D=4
before the adapt y+.
At the impingement surface and at the co-axial tube walls of the same co-axial case, the y+ average value is ~1.
Concerning the unsteady flow which occurs in the second part of the geometry, the time step used was10-5 s.
240 Chiraz Boughanmi et al. / Energy Procedia 107 (2017) 237 – 241

3. Results and discussions

3.1. Average nusselt numbers

h( R ) D
Nu ( R) = (4)
k
1 ϕ ( R)
h( R ) = (5)
π R2 Tpl − T j
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the numerical predictions, Fig. 2 (a) presents the Nu profiles. The
obtained average Nusselt numbers ( Nu ) of co-axial jets are compared to the single jets ones Nu of both those
calculated by two correlations in the literature Sagot et al. (2008) [8] and Martin (1977) [9] and own result all over
the plate.
A comparison of the accuracy of different turbulent models used in this study and that one used by N.Celik (2012)
[10] is also proposed in the same Figure. As it can be seen from this comparison, the SST k-Ȧ correctly describes
the average Nusselt number distribution which is consistent with the different results obtained by all of the cited
authors. The SST combines the k-ε model farther from the wall and the k-Ȧ model at the near region. The RNG and
the Realisable k-ε models failed to predict the correct location of the secondary peak of the Nu values.
A Comparison with horizontal disposition proves a very slight reduction of the average Nusselt number for that
last.
Fig. 2(b) compared Nu of different Re value. It showed that Nu value increase when the Re number increase.
300

100

Re=50000 k w SST
k w SST Re=10000 k w SST
Sargot et all 2008 Re=20000 K w SST
Martin1977
80
N.Celik 2012
K e realisable
200
K e RNG
k w SST horizontal
single jet k w SST
Nu average
Nu average

60

40
100

20

0 0

0 4 8 12 16 0 4 8 12 16
r/D r/D
(a) (b)

Fig. 2. Average Nusselt numbers ( Nu ) for d/D=0.35 and H/D=4 (a) Re=10000; (b) Different Re values.

3.2. Effect of shielding gas

The k-ω SST turbulence model seemed to be accurate in the prediction of the coaxial impingement jet to a heated
plane; this model is therefore applied in this second part of the proposed work studying the effect of a shielding gas.
The argon inert gas is injected at the entry of the outer pipe with a Reynolds number Re=10000. Its role in this case
is to protect the weld from oxidation. The laser power selected to produce the laser beam is 1000W delivered with
the same axis of the gas jet. They move together with the same welding speed which is 7m/min. The following
results are taken at 0.09s.
The argon gas volume fraction distribution for jet Re=10000 is presented in Fig. 3 (a): The Argon gas is showed
in red color; the blue color at the first part represents the air and at the other part the welding plane. The intermediate
color represents different levels of mixture between air and argon.
With this distribution of argon concentration, it is clear that there is no air infiltration between the argon gas and
the welding plane. So, the shielding gas plays effectively its protection role.
 Chiraz Boughanmi et al. / Energy Procedia 107 (2017) 237 – 241 241

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Fig. 3 (a). Argon gas’s volume fraction in the calculated domain. (b) Calculated static temperature distribution in the symmetrical half of the
impingement plane (y-z cross-section) x=0; (c) in the (x-y cross-section) z=0; (d) in the (x-z cross-section) y=0

Fig (b,c and d) presents the temperature profiles of the welding plane in the top view (y-z cross-section) which is
the symmetrical part of the impingement plane with the y axis taken as the symmetric axis. The two sides of view
(x-y) and (x-z) cross-sections of the temperature field calculated through the laser welding process are also
presented. The plane static temperature range is from 300K to 883K. So, the solidus temperature of the magnesium
alloys AZ91 743 K is reached and exceeded. Fig. 3 (b) shows the bead width welding which its value is 0.55mm and
(c and d) presents the penetration depth which has a value of 0.4mm.

4. Conclusion

This paper presents a numerical study aiming to investigate and to provide a knowledge base for assessing in the
first hand, the parameters of heat exchange with a coaxial jet impinging a heated plate and replacing this heated
plate with a welding plate and the air jet by an argon jet and observed the aspect of the gas shield during the process
in the other hand.
A comparison of different turbulent models revealed that the SST k-Ȧ correctly describes the average Nusselt
number distribution. Away from the stagnation zone, the heat exchange and the behavior of the coaxial jet is the
same as those of an impinging single jet.
The industrial application of a laser welding of AZ91 magnesium alloy with shielding gas was correctly
simulated and observed. Next, we will compare this position of shielding gas with other different angles of the weld.

References

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Thermal and Fluid Science 13, 71–80, 1996.
[2] V.Narayanan et Yagoobi J.S., R.H. Page, Heat transfer characteristics of a slot jet reattachment nozzle, Transactions of ASME (C) 120, 348–
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[3] N. Celik, Eren , Heat transfer due to impinging co-axial jets and the jets’ fluid flow characteristics, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science
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