Simulation on welding thermal effect of AZ61 magnesium alloy based on three-dimensional modeling of vacuum electron beam welding heat source

The deep-penetration thermal effect of keyhole and surface thermal effect of high-temperature metal vapor by the direct-acting mechanism during vacuum electron beam welding were analyzed. According to the thermal effect, a composite source model working for magnesium alloy welding was developed. This model was composed of Gaussian surface source and conical heat source. By the welding experiments on AZ61 magnesium alloy, it can be obtained those two key factors, which were welding heat input and focus coil current (I_f), affected the keyhole thermal effect and weld shape significantly. In order to simulate the shape of keyhole and weld, the varying of focus conditions in model were realized by the power coefficient of composite welding heat source. It can be seen that there was a good consistency between the calculation results and experimental results.