Effects of laser beam energy and incident angle on the pulse laser welding of stainless steel thin sheet

This paper reports an experimental study of laser spot welding on stainless steel sheets. A pulsed Nd:YAG laser was used to weld the stainless steel specimen in the range of laser energy 0.6–1.2 J and incident angle 30–75° (the angle of the laser beam incident direction to the sheet surface). Metallography was applied to measure the cross-sectional size and shape of the welded spot. From the experimental results, it is found that as the laser energy increases, the penetration depth, bead length, and bead width of the welded spot increase. As the laser incident angle increases, the penetration depth and the bead width increase while the bead length decreases. The results illustrate that the shape and size of the welded spot depend not only on the laser energy, but also on the incident angle of laser beam.