TY - JOUR TI - Influence of the welding parameters on the heat affected zone for aluminium welding AU - Valdenebro José Luis Meseguer AU - Martínez-Conesa Eusebio J AU - Serna José AU - Portoles Antonio JN - Thermal Science PY - 2016 VL - 20 IS - 2 SP - 643 EP - 653 PT - Article AB - This work analyzes the Heat Affected Zone in an aluminum alloy welded assembly using the Metal Inert Gas welding technique. Making use of numerical simulations of the involved thermal processes, the aluminum alloy cooling curve is calculated and the extension of the Heat Affected Zone is evaluated. The connection between this last parameter, the cooling rate, and the maximum obtained temperature is assessed. Additionally, the response surface method is exploited to fit the dependence of the Heat Affected Zone with the welding parameters and to optimize these parameters in order to minimize that region.