The effect of surface roughness on 1050 aluminum alloy weld profile welded by pulsed Nd:YAG laser

Surface roughness in the welding processes is one of the important parameters in the laser welded metal connections which affects laser beam absorption directly. When the laser beam is irradiated to the surface of the base metal, the surface roughness plays an important role in the amount of beam absorption and the amount of melting achieved and directly affects the penetration depth. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of roughness mentioned above in the equal parameter for this widely used aluminum alloy. Microstructural Surveys were performed on three different roughness levels of the sample and the results obtained from the analysis of samples by optical microscope (OM), atomic force microscope (AFM) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis showed that, increasing the surface roughness up to Ra = 0.16 micrometer, caused the greater degree of beam engagement by the surface grooves, hence more concentration of the beam photons and more melting obtained, so the depth of penetration increases by consuming a lower amount of energy.