Search

New systems and methods to access the temperature of the melt pool in welding processes have been developed to study phenomena, monitor behaviours, and even be used in closed-loop control strategies. Concerning arc welding processes, the arc radiation might impose a challenge to measure the temperature. However, heat input is the key point for welding quality. This work aims to evaluate the feasibility and detect potentialities of accessing the thermal field from the rear weld pool in the GTAW process by using in-house developed equipment. The original system was conceptualized based on a previous bichromatic method. Experiments were carried out with and without the wire feed addition, and welding parameters were varied to explore its impacts on the temperature measurement. A strategy to select the regions of interest (ROIs) within the weld pool was created, and the mean temperature was calculated and correlated to the weld bead features. This strategy was able to overcome the challenges imposed by the electrode/nozzle reflection and the arc radiation during the welding. The rear weld pool thermal field was shown to be an important source of data to provide hints of the weld bead features. The mean temperature can indicate geometrical changes in the weld bead. Furthermore, the technique has the potential to be used as a promising real-time process monitoring tool.

Droplet transfer frequency is a decisive factor in welding quality and efficiency in gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). However, there still needs to be a monitoring method for droplet transfer frequency with high precision and good real-time performance. Therefore, a real-time monitoring method for droplet transfer frequency in wire-filled GTAW using arc sensing is proposed in this paper. An arc signal acquisition system is developed, and the wavelet filtering method filters out noise from the arc signal. An arc signal segmentation method—based on the OTSU algorithm and a feature extraction method for droplet transition based on density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN)—is proposed to extract the feature signal of the droplet transition. A new conception of droplet transition uniformity is proposed, and it can be used to monitor the weld bead width uniformity. Numerous experiments for monitoring droplet transfer frequency in real time are conducted with typical welding parameters. This method enables the real-time observation of droplet transfer frequency, and the result shows that the average monitoring error is less than 0.05 Hz.

A dissimilar welded joint of Inconel 718 and 304L austenitic stainless steel was prepared using a combined procedure with the gas tungsten arc welding and shielded metal arc welding processes by employing the Ni-based fillers: ERNiCr-3 and ENiCrFe-3. The welded joints were investigated for metallographic testing and mechanical properties, and a relationship was established between the microstructure and the resultant mechanical properties. Microstructural observation revealed the formation of the unmixed zone on the 304L SS side. The weld metal showed that the fully austenitic microstructure consisted of the Nb- and Ti-rich carbide phases along the inter-dendritic spaces. The tensile test results at room temperature showed the failure from the weld metal which might be due to alloying element segregation along the inter-dendritic spaces. However, a tensile test at 600 °C showed the failure from the 304L SS base metal with a tensile strength and % elongation value of 377 MPa and 24%, respectively. The hardness plot showed the average hardness value of the weld metal of 236 ± 5 HV, which was higher than the 304L SS BM (204 ± 4 HV) but lower than the IN718 BM (243 ± 5 HV). The impact toughness of the weld metal was 109 J, which was significantly lower than the base metals. The poor impact strength of the weld metal might be due to the evolution of the NbC phase along inter-dendritic spaces.

This study focuses on the results of the welding process when the Taguchi method is added to the design of experimental welding parameters when creating the welding procedure for gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) by ASME Code for duplex stainless steel (UNS31803). A Vickers hardness tester is employed to collect and convert the tensile strength data for each test piece (weld bead, base material, and heat-affected area). A ferritic rate meter can quickly determine the ferric contents, which affect corrosion resistance and susceptibility to cracking. The test data are entered into the Taguchi technique to analyze the influence of each component on the welding quality. The L9 (34) orthogonal table is used to design the parameters for the experiment. We fixed the same shielding gas and flow rate. Backing gas at root, workpiece clamping angle, heat input, and interlayer temperature are employed as control factors for the four essential variables of the GTAW process. The ideal set of quality analysis and optimization parameters can be found. The welding parameters could be used to improve the welding quality of thin and short duplex stainless steel pipe fittings during argon welding.

Ferrite number (FN) is a crucial parameter for austenite steel-welding products, since it has a specific relationship with crack sensitivity and other important properties. In this paper, artificial neural network (ANN) models were built to predict FN, based on the GTAW tests of 304L plates produced by two different steelworks, Dongfang Special Steel hot-rolled sheet (DFSS) and Anshan Iron and Steel cold-rolled sheet (ASIS). The results show that a high performance, of more than 98% accuracy, can be achieved when the models of DFSS and ASIS are modeled separately, and that accuracy is also above 96% when an integrated model is built. The influences of nitrogen content and multiwelding parameters, such as travel speed, wire-feed rate, welding current and arc length, on FN are also analyzed through the FN-prediction model for DFSS. The results show that FN increases monotonously with the increase of nitrogen content, but the influences of either of the other two parameters on FN are nonlinear.

Progress in sustainable manufacturing is a crucial element to minimise negative environmental impacts. The conventional fusion weld process used to join aluminium alloys resulted in coarse grain structure, inevitable defects, and severe joint softening. Friction stir processing (FSP) has the potential to modify the microstructure of materials in joint structure and improve the mechanical properties. In this investigation, the effect of friction stir post–processing was evaluated to study the microstructural characteristics and mechanical properties of GTAW (gas tungsten arc welding) welds in the aluminium 5052 alloy. During FSP, the grains’ dendritic microstructure was destroyed, and the dynamic recrystallisation resulted in a very fine and equiaxed grains structure in the fusion zone. The hardness of the friction-stir-processed welds significantly improved because of microstructure grain refinement. The processed joint demonstrated higher ultimate tensile and yield strength (~275 MPa and 221 MPa, respectively) and superior elongation (31.1%) compared to the unprocessed weld; at the same time, the mechanical strength (yield and ultimate tensile) is similar to that of the base metal.

High-strength aluminum alloy fabricated using spray deposition technology possesses many advantages, such as fine crystal grains, low component segregation, uniform microstructure, and small internal stress. In this study, spray-deposited 2195 Al-Cu-Li alloy in forged state was used and welded using the gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) process to test and verify the features of the fusion joint. Quantitative analysis was carried out to evaluate the relationship between the local microstructures and performances of the fusion joint, which was composed of four zones: weld metal, fusion zone, heat-affected zone, and base metal. The characteristic quantities of each zone, including recrystallized grain fraction, grain sizes, grain misorientation angle, and Vickers hardness, and their distributions were considered as the key factors affecting the performance of the joint because of welding thermal cycle impact on the fusion joint. To recognize the metallurgical characteristics of spray-deposited alloy 2195, a statistical algorithm based on the concept of the Hall–Petch relationship was proposed to validate the actual test results, which include the correlation effects of both the filler wire and welding process. The correlation between the microstructures and performances of several characteristic quantities were evaluated by integrating the above characteristic information of the fusion joint under the strong coupling of multiple factors. Thus, the advantages of weldability of spray-deposited alloy 2195 using GTAW could be understood in detail.

Automatic joint detection is of vital importance for the teaching of robots before welding and the seam tracking during welding. For narrow butt joints, the traditional structured light method may be ineffective, and many existing detection methods designed for narrow butt joints can only detect their 2D position. However, for butt joints with narrow gaps and 3D trajectories, their 3D position and orientation of the workpiece surface are required. In this paper, a vision based detection method for narrow butt joints is proposed. A crosshair laser is projected onto the workpiece surface and an auxiliary light source is used to illuminate the workpiece surface continuously. Then, images with an appropriate grayscale distribution are grabbed with the auto exposure function of the camera. The 3D position of the joint and the normal vector of the workpiece surface are calculated by the combination of the 2D and 3D information in the images. In addition, the detection method is applied in a robotic seam tracking system for GTAW (gas tungsten arc welding). Different filtering methods are used to smooth the detection results, and compared with the moving average method, the Kalman filter can reduce the dithering of the robot and improve the tracking accuracy significantly.

Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) with three different heat inputs controlled by the weaving width was performed to understand their effects on the microstructural changes during bead-on-pipe welding of super duplex stainless steel. The microstructure of the weld metals was categorized into three different types of zones: non-reheated, reheated type, and reheating-free zone. Even though single-pass welding with different weaving widths was employed, a reheated microstructure was detected, which has been previously observed with multiple pass welding. This phenomenon was called “dynamic reheating”, because it was produced by the weaving operation during welding regardless of the weaving width. The categorized area fraction varied with the weaving width change. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) results at the edge (the area near the fusion line) of the low-heat-input condition indicated a higher austenite volume fraction and a lower Cr2N fraction than that of the medium heat input condition. Thus, it described an inverse relationship, because higher heat input provided a lower austenite fraction. In addition, it was observed clearly that the austenite fraction at the medium heat input condition was dramatically increased by reheating, while the Cr2N fraction was reduced. Regardless of the weaving width, reheating contributed to the increase of the austenite fraction, further reducing the Cr2N quantity. The edge areas in the map showed an inverse relationship in the reheated area fraction between low heat input and medium heat input. For this reason, the austenite fraction on the weld metal was determined not only by the heat input, but also by the amount of reheating.

Improved product quality and production methods, and decreased production costs are important objectives of industries. Welding processes are part of this goal. There are many studies about monitoring and controlling welding process. This work presents a non-intrusive on-line monitoriment system and some algorithms capable of detecting GTAW weld defects. Some experiments were made to simulate weld defects by disturbing the electric arc. The data comes from a spectrometer which captures perturbations on the electric arc by the radiation emission of chosen lines. Algorithms based on change detection methods are used to indicate the presence and localization of those defects.

The importance of the additional growth and/or transformation of the austenite phase that occurs in weld metals of super duplex stainless steel upon reheating is known. However, the effects have not been fully investigated, especially with respect to reheating induced by weaving during single-pass welding. In this work, bead-on-pipe gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) was conducted on super duplex stainless steel to understand the effect of weaving on the microstructure of weld metal. Microstructural analysis, electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), and focused ion beam transmission electron microscopy (FIB-TEM) were carried out to investigate the relationship between weaving and microstructural change. The weaving of GTAW produced a dynamic reheated area just before the weld bead during welding. It was revealed that extensive reheated weld existed even after one welding pass, and that the content of the austenite phase in the reheated area was higher than that in the non-reheated area, indicating the existence of a large quantity of intragranular austenite phase. In addition, the Cr2N content in the reheated area was lower than that in the non-reheated area. This reduction of Cr2N was closely related to the reheating resulting from weaving. TEM analysis revealed that Cr2N in the non-reheated area was dispersed following heating and transformed to secondary austenite.

The aim of this work was to investigate the corrosion rate of welded carbon steel pipe (ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) A106 Grade B) by GTAW under the currents of 60, 70, and 80 A. All welded pipes satisfied weld procedure specifications and were verified by a procedure qualification record. The property of used materials was in agreement with the ASME standard: section IX. The welded pipe was used for schematic model corrosion measurements applied in 3.5 wt % NaCl at various flow rates and analyzed by using the electrochemical technique with Tafel’s equation. The results showed the correlation between the flow rate and the corrosion rate of the pipe; the greater the flow rate, the higher corrosion rate. Moreover, the welded pipe from the welding current of 70 A exhibited higher tensile strength and corrosion resistance than those from currents of 60 and 80 A. It indicated that the welding current of 70 A produced optimum heat for the welding of A106 pipe grade B. In addition, the microstructure of the welded pipe was observed by SEM. The phase transformation and crystallite size were analyzed by XRD and Sherrer’s equation. The results suggested that the welding current could change the microstructure and phase of the welded pipe causing change in the corrosion rate.