LAUSR

Abstract The effect of process parameters viz., welding speed, pulse energy and frequency on the aspect ratio and the peak temperature in the numerical simulation of Nd: YAG laser welding of Hastelloy C-276 is presented. The experimental conditions are designed based on Taguchi L9 orthogonal array and the simulation is performed in SYSWELD 16, a 3 D software package. The optimized parameters for attaining a maximum aspect ratio and a minimum peak temperature (responses) were determined by computing the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). Mathematical model based on regression analysis was developed for predicting the responses using statistical software Minitab-16. Further, the simulation results are correlated with the regression and artificial neural network models. The deviation is estimated to be less than 10% indicating their effectiveness in predicting the responses. The experimental macrograph for the optimized condition is concurrent with the numerical simulation.