Controlling the Electron Beam Focus Regime and Monitoring the Keyhole in Electron Beam Welding

Control of beam focus position is important in the regime choice of electron beam welding (EBW). It is known that the methods of electron beam focus control in electron beam welding are done according to the parameters of secondary current signal collected in plasma. The purpose of the study is to develop a method for operational control of the electron beam focusing during welding in the deep penetration mode. The method uses an additional informational parameter of collected current signal in beam/work-piece plasma. This parameter can be used for creating the operational control methods for exact electron beam focusing during the process of welding. In addition, uses of this parameter allow a better study of the keyhole processes.