Simulation Study on Laser Welding Parameters of Al6063-T6 Aluminum Tubes

Al6063-T6 aluminum tubes are widely used in the automotive and crawler crane manufacturing industries due to their low density, excellent mechanical properties, outstanding corrosion resistance, and good formability. To enhance the strength of welded joints, finite element modeling of Al6063-T6 automotive tubes was conducted using ABAQUS software, with a Dflux subroutine written in Fortran to set up the welding environment in the simulation. A Gaussian rotating conical heat source model was established to analyze the welding process and study the effects of laser power, welding speed, and spot size on the temperature field. Furthermore, the analysis shows that low-speed, high-power, and small-spot welding can achieve stronger joints, meeting the high-strength requirements of automotive and crawler crane tubing.