Abstract
Welding processes imply rapid solidification, in presence of high thermal gradient and strong fluid flows in the weld pool. This work presents, in the case of welding, an analysis of the coupling between solidification mechanisms and fluid flows at the macroscale and the microscale. An experimental setup was designed in order to observe in situ a fully penetrated weld pool generated on a Cu30Ni plate with a GTAW torch. At the macroscale, observations are carried out by three cameras: two cameras recording in visible light the top and the back side of the whole weld pool, and one infrared camera catching the thermal field on solid part at the back side. At the microscale, a high-speed camera, mounted with a microscope lens, is used to observe dendritic growth and fluid flows at the back side trailing edge of the weld pool. The observations provide a lot of data allowing analyses and discussions on the correlations between solidification mechanisms and fluid flows, with respect to welding parameters. Then, the experimental results are compared to theoretical results obtained from analytical modelling, in order to discuss the possible limitations of models and try to better understand the coupling between physical phenomena.