Influence of the beam profile formulation when modeling fiber-guided laser welding

During deep penetration laser welding, the focused laser beam determines the vapor capillary, called keyhole, and in turn the whole process physics. Beside spot diameter and Rayleigh length, the beam profile is another important but hardly explored part of the focused laser beam. The focusing of fiber-guided Yb:fiber, Nd:YAG or diode laser beams creates the complex situation that the beam has a top-hat profile in the focal plane but toward the far field transforms to a Gaussian beam. Such power density distribution was measured for a focused high power Yb:fiber laser beam and then approached by three different beam formulations. The beam formulations were then applied to model the keyhole shape during laser welding. Although a second order beam model approached the measured beam significantly more accurately, the first order Gaussian beam was similarly suitable to predict the keyhole shape as long as the central beam domains do not interact with the material, which occurs only for low focal plane positions. A hypothetical top-hat beam would cause a different, steeper keyhole shape. Consequently, a Gaussian beam is still a suitable formulation for a wide range of welding parameters.