Optics and Laser Technology 93 (2017) 118–126

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Optics and Laser Technology

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Full length article

Comparison of single-beam and dual-beam laser welding

of Ti–22Al–25Nb/TA15 dissimilar titanium alloys
Junqi Shen a,b,⇑, Bo Li a,b, Shengsun Hu a,b, Hao Zhang a,b, Xianzheng Bu c
a
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Joining Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300354, China
b
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300354, China
c
Beijing Hangxing Machine Manufacture Co., Ltd., Beijing 100013, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Laser beam welding (LBW) was used to join Ti–22Al–25Nb/TA15 dissimilar titanium alloys. The
Received 27 September 2016 microstructure and mechanical properties of the welded joints under single and dual beam welding were
Received in revised form 17 January 2017 analyzed and compared. In the mode of single laser beam, the fusion zone only consisted of B2 phase
Accepted 14 February 2017
because of existence of b-phase stabilizer and rapid cooling rate of LBW. However, O phase was formed
Available online 6 March 2017
in the fusion zone while applying dual-beam laser welding due to decrease of the cooling rate. The micro-
hardness distribution of the welded joint in dual-beam welding mode was consistent with that in single
Keywords:
mode, but the hardness of the weld under dual laser beam was higher than that of single laser beam. In
Dual-beam laser welding
Dissimilar titanium alloys
room-temperature tensile tests, the fractures all occurred in the weld, but the morphology exhibited a
Microstructure quasi-cleavage feature in single mode while the morphology was dimple fracture in the mode of dual
Mechanical properties laser beam. The tensile strength and elongation were both increased under dual-beam laser welding
compared with those under single-beam laser welding.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction beam welding (EBW) and laser beam welding (LBW). Tan et al.
[5] applied EBW to a Ti–22Al–25Nb alloy and TC11. The weld metal
In recent years, considerable efforts have been devoted to consisted of B2 + O + a2 three phases. In addition, the room-
developing titanium intermetallic alloys for high temperature ser- temperature tensile strength of the joint was higher than that of
vice [1]. Among them, a new class of titanium intermetallic alloys, the TC11 alloy. Qin et al. [6] investigated electron-beam-welded
Ti2AlNb-based alloy containing the orthorhombic O phase, has Ti–22Al–27Nb alloys and TC11. The weld metal contained single
received wide attention as potential materials for aircraft engine B2 phase, and the tensile strength of the welded joint was lower
applications because of their high fracture toughness and specific than that of base metal. Lei et al. [7] jointed a Ti–22Al–27Nb alloy
strength [2]. They are considered as ideal high-temperature struc- and TC4 by LBW. They found that the weld metal consisted mainly
tural materials which can improve the performance of aircraft of the B2 and martensitic a’ phases. The average tensile strength of
engine by reducing structure weight [3]. The TA15 alloy is a the joints was approximately 92% of that of TC4 and room-
near-a titanium alloy with high aluminum equivalent, and it exhi- temperature tensile fracture occurred at the weld joint. Zhang
bits a medium strength at room and high temperatures and good et al. [8] applied laser-TIG (TIG – tungsten inert gas) hybrid weld-
weldability [4]. So it’s commonly used in manufacturing load- ing to join Ti–22Al–27Nb and TA15 dissimilar titanium alloys. The
bearing structural weldment for aerospace industry. To fully make fusion zone mainly consisted of B2 phase due to the relatively high
use of performance advantages of these two kinds of alloys, it’s of content of b phase stabilizing elements and fast cooling rate during
great significance to investigate the appropriate welding proce- the welding process.
dures of these two dissimilar titanium alloys. It can be found that when applying high energy beam welding
According to the previous research, the effective welding pro- processes to join Ti2AlNb-based alloys and other titanium alloys,
cesses for joining Ti2AlNb-based alloys and other titanium alloys the single B2 phase is easily formed in the fusion zone, which will
are mainly high energy beam welding processes, such as electron reduce the weld performance.
Dual-beam laser welding is a potential method to solve the
⇑ Corresponding author at: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin above problem because the existing mode of the keyhole, the flow
University, Tianjin 300354, China. pattern of the liquid metal and the welding temperature field can
E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Shen). be flexibly adjusted by changing interbeam spacing and the ratio

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2017.02.013
0030-3992/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 J. Shen et al. / Optics and Laser Technology 93 (2017) 118–126 119

of laser power. Compared with single-beam laser welding, dual- Table 1

beam laser welding has some advantages. Xie [9] suggested that Chemical composition by weight percentage of Ti–22Al–25Nb and TA15.

the dual-beam could significantly improve weld quality. Cao Ti–22Al–25Nb TA15
et al. [10] indicated that the solidification time of the weld metal Elements wt% Elements wt%
could be prolonged due to the increase of weld pool size. Glumann
Ti Balance Ti Balance
et al. [11] found that cooling time between 800 and 500 °C could be Al 10.92 Al 6.56
extended from 3.8 up to 7 s by enlarging interbeam spacing, where Nb 43.10 V 2.29
two 5-kW CO2 lasers were combined. Liu et al. [12] performed a O <0.02 Zr 2.20
dual-beam laser welding experiment on AISI 4140 steels. The N <0.01 Mo 1.74

results showed that cooling rates of dual-beam laser welding were

23% lower than that of single-beam process. Asibu et al. [13] built
several mathematical models on the cooling rates. The theoretical
then polished and etched by using a Kroll solution (100 ml of
analyses showed the cooling rates at the weld centerline were
H2O, 3 ml of HF, and 5 ml of HNO3). Optical microscope (OM)
reduced from 1004 °C/s in the single-beam process to 570 °C/s in
was used to observe the morphology of the weld interface. X-ray
the dual-beam process.
diffraction (XRD) was used for phase analysis and diffraction uti-
In this study, 2-mm-thick Ti–22Al–25Nb/TA15 dissimilar alloy
lized Cu Ka radiation. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) was
plates were welded by single-beam and dual-beam laser welding,
used to observe the microstructure, element distribution and
and the morphology characteristic, microstructure and mechanical
fracture morphology. A microhardness tester with a load of 500 g
properties of the welded joints were systematically compared and
and load time of 10 s was used to measure the Vickers hardness
analyzed.
of the welded joints. The distance between any two consecutive
indentations was set as 0.2 mm, as shown in Fig. 5. A electronic
2. Experimental procedure universal testing machine with a displacement speed of 2 mm/
min was used to test the tensile strength of welded specimens at
The materials used in the present study were Ti–22Al–25Nb room temperature and an elevated temperature of 550 °C. The
alloy and TA15 alloy, with the same dimensions of geometries of the tensile specimens are depicted in Fig. 6 (the units
200 mm
100 mm
2 mm. Fig. 1 shows the microstructure of are mm).
these two materials. The microstructure of Ti–22Al–25Nb alloy
consists of a2, B2 and O phases. B2 phase is the matrix, the black
equiaxed phase is a2 phase, and the rod-like phase is O phase. 3. Results and discussions
The microstructure of TA15 titanium alloy consists of a and b
phases. The matrix is a phase and the white massive phase is b 3.1. Appearance of the welded joint
phase. The chemical compositions of Ti–22Al–25Nb alloy and
TA15 titanium alloy are shown in Table 1. Fig. 7 shows the cross sections of the welded joints. The cross
Two sheets were fixed by clamping fixture to ensure that there sections shape were both like cup-cone under single and dual laser
is no gap between the butt joint. Acetone and ethanol were used to beam welding. As shown in Fig. 8, the weld cross section dimen-
clean the surfaces of the specimens before welding. Argon was sions of dual-beam laser welded joints were compared with those
used to protect the molten pool from the atmosphere and suppress of the joints under single mode. When applying dual-beam laser
plasma plume formation. Pure argon was employed as front and welding, the weld pool size was larger than that of single beam,
back shielding gas with flow rates of 15 L/min and 5 L/min, respec- so front weld width of dual laser beam welding was wider. Besides
tively. Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagram of laser welding of dis- that, the power density of dual laser beam welding was signifi-
similar titanium alloys. The single-beam laser and the dual-beam cantly lower than that of single mode under the same laser power,
laser are individually applied for welding. The dual laser beam which could decrease the heat absorbed by the back weld. Then
used in this study is separated from the same laser beam by optical back weld width of dual laser beam welding was narrower.
method. An optical prism can divide the single laser beam into two At the present time, keyhole instability has been considered to
separate spots, as shown in Fig. 3 [14]. Fig. 4 shows the schematic be the main reason for porosity formation in laser welding process
diagram of dual-beam laser welding. The welding parameters [15]. Under the same heat input conditions, besides the degassing
employed in single-beam and dual-beam laser welding are listed effect of larger keyhole, the lower power density, the smaller sur-
in Table 2. face tension force and the larger surface area of weld pool are ben-
For microstructure observations, the specimens were cut per- eficial for the process stabilization in dual laser beam welding [16].
pendicular to the welding direction from the welded joints and So there were smaller pores in the dual-beam laser welded joint.

Fig. 1. Microstructures of the base metals: (a) Ti–22Al–25Nb alloy, (b) TA15 alloy.
120 J. Shen et al. / Optics and Laser Technology 93 (2017) 118–126

Fig. 2. Schematic of laser welding process.

the fusion boundary. The temperature in front of the solid/liquid

interface is relatively high. Once the crystal nucleus grew up, they
would be melted by overheated liquid metal. So the solid/liquid
interface can only move forward uniformly, consequently generat-
ing the plane grain. Before solidifying ends, the temperature gradi-
ent is lower at the center of the bottom because of the release of
the crystallization latent heat. Therefore, the cellular grain could
be obtained due to the formation of the constitutional undercooled
zone. The microstructure of fusion zone in dual-beam laser weld-
ing was similar with that in single mode. However, the size of
the cellular grain was larger in dual-beam mode than that in
single-beam mode, as shown in Fig. 10. It’s because that when
applying dual-beam laser welding, an elongated keyhole was gen-
erated so that the weld pool size became larger [9]. Then the cellu-
lar grain had more time to grow up due to extension of the
elevated temperature holding time.
According to the XRD analysis, it can be found that the fusion
zone only consisted of B2 phase in the mode of single laser beam
and O phase is formed in the fusion zone under dual-beam laser
welding, as shown in Fig. 11. During the heating process, the weld
containing some b phase stabilizer (like Nb, Mo, V) allowed for the
development of a2 to B2 microstructures. In the subsequent cool-
ing process of single-beam laser welding, the cooling rate was
much higher than the critical cooling rate of phase transformation,
which inhibited the formation of other phases when b transformed
into the B2 phase [17]. Thus, the single-beam laser weld contained
single B2 phase. However, the cooling rate of dual-beam laser
welding is lower than that of single-beam process [12,13]. The key-
hole shape in the dual-beam process was elongated along the
Fig. 3. Schematic view of a dual-beam fiber laser head. welding direction due to the existence of interbeam spacing. Then
the temperature gradient in the transverse direction could be flat-
tened due to heat conduction loss along the transverse direction
3.2. Microstructure characteristic of the welded joint [9]. The cooling rate of the molten metal was therefore reduced,
resulting in extending the phase transition time of b phase. More-
The microstructure of the fusion zone under single-beam laser over, dual-beam laser welding greatly improve the stability of the
welding was examined, as shown in Fig. 9. The upside of the fusion welding process. The vapor plume fluctuation during dual laser
zone consisted of cellular grain, while planar grain and cellular beam welding is less, which suppresses eruptions of plumes
grain were formed in the bottom of the fusion zone. The different [9,18]. Little plume eruption could lead to little spatter, so the
microstructure in fusion zone resulted from the diversity of the energy loss of the laser caused by spatter is decreased and laser
temperature gradient during the welding process. In the bottom is absorbed more fully by weld pool. It also helps to slow down
of the fusion zone, the temperature gradient is very high near the cooling rate of the weld metal, which is beneficial for the phase
 J. Shen et al. / Optics and Laser Technology 93 (2017) 118–126 121

Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of tandem dual-beam laser welding: (a) front view, (b) top view.

Table 2
Welding parameters employed in this study.

No. Lead/lag beam Laser power (W) Welding speed Interbeam spacing (mm) Flow rate of front Flow rate of back
(mm/min) shielding gas (L/min) shielding gas (L/min)
1 Single beam 1300 1200 – 15 5
2 50/50 1300 1200 0.36 15 5

So the peak temperature reached the temperature zone of the a + b

phase but was lower than the b phase transformation temperature
in the HAZ near the TA15 base metal. During the heating process,
the a phase couldn’t completely transform into b phase due to
the fast laser welding heating rate. In the subsequent cooling pro-
cess, an amount of a phase was retained from high temperature to
room temperature and a part of b phase transformed into quadratic
Fig. 5. Schematic of the microhardness test.
a phase. Thus, the microstructure of the HAZ near the TA15 base
metal consisted of quadratic a phase, a phase and b phase (shown
in Fig. 12(b)).
Fig. 13 shows the microstructure of the HAZ in the Ti–22Al–
25Nb alloy side when applying single-beam laser welding. Accord-
ing to the phase diagram of Ti–22Al–XNb (at.%) [19], the
microstructure of the HAZ can be better analyzed. In the HAZ near
the fusion zone, the peak temperature was higher than the b/B2
transformation temperature in the heating process, then both the
O phase and a2 phase transformed into the B2 phase. However,
an amount of a2 phase was retained because the heating rate
was so fast and the a2 phase was stable. The cooling rate was fast
enough to suppress the b phase into O/a2 phase transformations
and the disordered b phase transformed into ordered B2 phase dur-
ing the cooling process. Therefore, the region contained B2 phase
and a2 phase (shown in Fig. 13(a)). The peak heating temperature
decreased to the a2 + b/B2 + O three-phase region from above the
B2 transformation temperature in the HAZ adjacent to the base
metal, and the B2 and a2 phase could be retained at ambient tem-
perature. Because of the poor stability of O phase, only a small
Fig. 6. Geometries of tensile test specimens for testing at (a) room temperature and amount of O phase didn’t transform into b/B2 phase. Thus, the
(b) elevated temperature of 550 °C. B2 phase, a2 phase and a small amount of O phase are observed
in the HAZ near the base metal (shown in Fig. 13(b)).
transition from b phase to O phase. In conclusion, the fusion zone The microstructure of the HAZ in the TA15 alloy side and Ti–
consisted of B2 phase and O phase when welding with dual-beam 22Al–25Nb alloy side under dual-beam laser welding were similar
laser. with those in single mode.
Fig. 12 shows the microstructure of the HAZ in the TA15 alloy
side when applying single-beam laser welding. In the HAZ near 3.3. Hardness distribution of the welded joint
the fusion zone, the peak heating temperature was higher than
the b transformation temperature in the heating process, so the Fig. 14 shows the microhardness plot along the cross-section of
a phase completely transformed into the b phase. However, the the welded joint. On the whole, the microhardness distribution of
cooling rate was so fast that the transformed b phase did not have the welded joint in dual-beam welding mode was consistent with
enough time to transform into the equilibrium a phase, which that in single mode. Two hardness peaks appeared in the HAZ of
makes the b phase only transform into the martensitic a0 phase Ti–22Al–25Nb alloy and the HAZ of the TA15 alloy, respectively.
(shown in Fig. 12(a)). The peak temperature decreases as the dis- The hardness distribution can be explained based on the
tance from the fusion zone decreases in the HAZ of the TA15 alloy. microstructure of the welded joint. In the Ti–22Al–25Nb alloy side,
122 J. Shen et al. / Optics and Laser Technology 93 (2017) 118–126

Fig. 7. Profile of the LBW butt joints: (a) single beam, (b) dual beam.

the HAZ and base metal predominantly contained the soft phase B2
and hard phase a2/O. As the distance from the fusion zone
decreased, the a2 particle content in the B2 phase matrix increased
and the amount of O phase decreased. In other words, there were
more a2 phase in the HAZ than the base metal. And a2 phase is
harder than O phase [5]. Thus, the hardness of the HAZ was higher
than that of base metal. In the TA15 alloy side, the base metal con-
sisted of a and b phase, the HAZ near the TA15 base metal con-
sisted of quadratic a phase, a phase and b phase, and the HAZ
near the fusion zone contained martensitic a0 phase. According to
the literature [20], the hardness of the existing phases in the
TA15 alloys follows the order: martensitic a0 > a phase > b phase.
So the hardness of the HAZ was higher than that of TA15 base
metal. Based on the above analysis, a large amount of martensitic
a0 phase formed near the fusion zone in the HAZ of TA15-side.
However, the HAZ of the Ti–22Al–25Nb-side predominantly con-
Fig. 8. The comparison of weld cross section dimensions between single and dual sisted of B2 phase, and the contents of a2 phase and O phase were
beam laser welding. less. Chen et al. [21] welded Ti–22Al–25Nb alloy plate. They found

Fig. 9. Microstructure of the fusion zone: (a) cellular grain in the upper left part, (b) cellular grain in the upper right part, (c) plane grain in the solid/liquid interface of the
bottom part, (d) cellular grain in the center of the bottom part.
 J. Shen et al. / Optics and Laser Technology 93 (2017) 118–126 123

Fig. 10. Microstructure of cellular grain in the fusion zone: (a) single beam, (b) dual beam.

Fig. 11. XRD pattern of the fusion zone: (a) single beam, (b) dual beam.

Fig. 12. HAZ microstructure of TA15 alloy: (a) near the fusion zone, (b) near the base metal.

that the HAZ contained B2 phase, a2 phase and O phase, and the 3.4. Tensile properties of the welded joint
microhardness of HAZ was about 340 HV. Zhang et al. [22] investi-
gated the microstructure of TA15 joints. They found that the HAZ Tensile tests were conducted at room temperature and 550 °C
of TA15 consisted of a phase and b phase, and the HAZ microhard- for the welded joint. At room temperature, the tensile tests results,
ness could reach to 380 HV. Apparently, the HAZ microhardness of which are the mean value of three different specimens with the
TA15 is higher than that of Ti–22Al–25Nb. In addition, the hard- same welding parameters, are presented in Fig. 15. The fractures
ness of region containing martensitic is so high and B2 phase is rel- were both occurred preferentially in the fusion zone. The average
atively soft [23]. Thus, the HAZ microhardness of TA15-side is tensile strength of the joints welded by single-beam laser was
higher than that of Ti–22Al–25Nb-side. The hardness of the fusion 943.2 MPa, and the average elongation was 3.56%. In the mode of
zone was the lowest, because the fusion zone mainly contained dual laser beam, the tensile strength and elongation were
soft phase B2. However, the hardness of the fusion zone under dual increased to 1011 Mpa and 5.67% respectively. In this study, the
laser beam was higher than that of single laser beam due to the for- tensile behavior of the welded joints depended largely on the
mation of O phase in the fusion zone. It was because O phase was phase compositions. When welding with single-beam laser, the
rather brittle owing to higher hardness than B2 phase [24]. average tensile strength of the joints reached a relatively low level
124 J. Shen et al. / Optics and Laser Technology 93 (2017) 118–126

Fig. 13. HAZ microstructure of Ti–22Al–25Nb alloy: (a) near the fusion zone, (b) near the base metal.

by single-beam and dual-beam laser. The morphology was

observed to possess quasi-cleavage characteristics in single mode.
There were obvious tearing edges and platform areas in the frac-
tured surface. The dimples were so shallow and uneven that indi-
cated low plasticity. However, the morphology was dimple fracture
in the mode of dual laser beam. The dual-beam laser weld exhib-
ited better ductility, because the dimples were evener and deeper
than those in single-beam laser welding, which caused increase of
elongation. Ti2AlNb-based titanium alloys are considered as
promising structural materials for future aero-engines due to the
combination of excellent room temperature and elevated temper-
ature properties [26]. So we performed tensile tests at an elevated
temperature of 550 °C. When the tensile tests were performed at
550 °C, all the joints fractured in the TA15 base metal, as shown
in Fig. 17. The average tensile strength was 655 MPa, with an aver-
age elongation of 18.5% under dual-beam laser welding. The aver-
age tensile strength and elongation were 663 MPa and 18.5%
Fig. 14. Microhardness distribution of the welded joints under single and dual
beam laser welding. respectively in the mode of single laser beam.

4. Conclusions

The Ti–22Al–25Nb/TA15 dissimilar alloys were welded by con-

tinuous single and dual laser beam. Based on the experimental
results and discussions, the following conclusions were drawn:

(1) The cross section shape of weld zone were both like cup-
cone under single and dual laser beam welding. When
applying dual-beam laser welding, a good quality joint could
be achieved with the exception of some porosity.
(2) In the mode of single laser beam, the fusion zone contained
single B2 phase. In the mode of dual laser beam, the fusion
zone consisted of B2 and O phases because of decrease of
the cooling rate.
(3) The microhardness distribution of the welded joint in dual-
beam welding mode was consistent with that in single
mode. The hardness of the weld under dual laser beam
was higher than that of single laser beam due to the forma-
Fig. 15. Tensile strength and elongation of the joints welded by single and dual tion of hard phase O.
beam laser. (4) The fracture both located at the fusion zone at room temper-
ature. The morphology was quasi-cleavage fracture in single
mode, while the morphology was dimple fracture in the
with the single B2 phase in the weld. While applying dual-beam
mode of dual laser beam. When applying dual-beam laser
laser welding, the formation of O phase at the weld improves the
welding, the average tensile strength of the welded joints
tensile strength by second phase strengthening. Besides that, the
was increased from 943.2 MPa to 1011 MPa because of the
precipitation of the O phase affected the slip feature and disloca-
formation of O phase. The elongation was increased from
tion characteristics, which contributed to improvement of the ten-
3.56% to 5.67% due to the deeper and evener dimple. All
sile strength and ductility by hindering the movement of
the joints fractured in the TA15 base metal and the morphol-
dislocations and dispersing the slip modes of the dislocations
ogy were dimple fracture at 550 °C.
[25]. Fig. 16 shows the fracture morphology of the joints welded
 J. Shen et al. / Optics and Laser Technology 93 (2017) 118–126 125

Fig. 16. SEM fractograph of the joints after tensile test at room temperature: (a) overview for single beam, (b) a higher magnification for single beam, (b) overview for dual
beam, (d) a higher magnification for dual beam.

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