Prediction of laser fusion zone profile of lotus-type porous metals by 3D heat transfer analysis

Lotus-type porous metals, whose pores are aligned in one direction by unidirectional solidification, have a unique combination of properties. These are expected as revolutionary engineering materials with anisotropy of the properties. For the industrial use of the lotus-type porous metals, a reliable joining technology is required. We already reported the melting property of a few lotus-type porous metals by laser welding. These results indicated that these materials possessed anisotropy of melting property with the pore direction perpendicular and parallel to the specimen surface, especially remarkable anisotropy was obtained for the copper specimen owing to the difference of the laser energy absorption to the specimen surface. In this report, the three-dimensional heat transfer analyses, which take into account the difference of the laser energy absorption comparing with the anisotropy of thermal conductivity inherent to lotus-type porous metals, were performed by commercial code with user-defined subroutine. Predicted profile of weld fusion zone is in good agreement with the cross-sectional view obtained by experiments.