Without any presupposed mechanism, a unified three-dimensional model is developed to predict the formation of humping bead in high speed gas metal arc welding, which considers the three phase coupling of solid, liquid and gas and the effect of shear stress exerting on weld pool surface caused by arc plasma. A strong backward fluid flow in weld pool is identified as the major factor for bead hump formation. The generation of thin liquid transition zone and its premature solidification are two conditions responsible for the occurrence of humped weld. In case of low inner contact angle between the liquid metal and workpiece surface, the bead hump is still generated. With increasing welding current, the bead hump can be suppressed.

A three-dimensional numerical model is used to simulate heat transfer and fluid flow phenomena in fiber laser + gas metal arc welding (GMAW) hybrid welding of an aluminum alloy, which incorporates three-phase coupling and is able to depict the keyhole dynamic behavior and formation process of the keyhole-induced porosity. The temperature profiles and fluid flow fields for different arc powers are calculated and the percent porosities of weld beads were also examined under different conditions by X-ray non-destructive testing (NDT). The results showed that the computed results were in agreement with the experimental data. For hybrid welding, with raising arc power, the keyhole-induced porosity was reduced. Besides the solidification rate of the molten pool, the melt flow was also closely related to weld porosity. A relatively steady anti-clockwise vortex caused by arc forces tended to force the bubble to float upwards at the high temperature region close to the welding heat source, which benefits the escape of the gas bubble from the melt pool. When increasing the arc power, the anti-clockwise region was strengthened and the risk of the gas bubble for capture by the liquid/solid interface underneath the keyhole tip was diminished, which resulted in the lower weld percent porosity.