Plasma arc welding is a high energy density arc welding technology

it adopts water-cooled nozzle to compress arc to form plasma with large impact force

which can directly realize single-side welding and double-side forming without opening groove. The conventional theoretical analysis and experimental methods have limitations in the research of arc and weld pool

the numerical simulation method is more rapid and effective

which can reflect the complex physical mechanism of plasma arc welding to a large extent

it can provide a theoretical guidance and reference for the actual plasma arc welding. The progress of plasma arc welding in the direction of numerical simulation from three aspects: arc

weld pool and the coupling between arc and weld pool is described.