A Comparative Study on the Effect of Welding Parameters of Austenitic Stainless Steels Using Artificial Neural Network and Taguchi Approaches with ANOVA Analysis

Halil Kurt,Engin Ergul,Ramazan Asmatulu,Necip Yilmaz,Murat Oduncuoglu

doi:10.3390/met8050326

Halil Kurt, Engin Ergul + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/met8050326

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Abstract

In order to investigate the structure of welds, austenitic stainless steel (SS) studs with a diameter of 6 mm were welded to austenitic SS plates with a thickness of 5 mm using an arc stud welding (ASW) method. The effects of the welding current, welding time, and tip volume of the stud on the microstructure and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of the welded samples were investigated in detail. The formation of δ-ferrites was detected in the weld zone because of the higher heat generated during the welding process. Higher welding current and time adversely affected the stud and significantly reduced the UTS of the samples. The UTS of the joints was also estimated using artificial neural network (ANN) and Taguchi approaches. The mathematical formulations for these two approaches were given in explicit form. Experimental results showed that the neural network results are more consistent with experimental results than those of the Taguchi method. Overall, it can be concluded that in order to achieve good welding joints and high strength values, ASW parameters should be investigated properly to determine the optimum conditions for each metal.

Highlights

Welding is a major fabrication method and widely used to join materials through a fusion process
The effects of friction stir welding parameters on the microstructure and mechanical properties of AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel (SS) joints were investigated by Kumar et al who used different tool rotational speeds
Argon gas with a constant flow rate of 5 liters per minute was chosen as a shield gas to protect the weld zone from oxidation and tarnishing

Summary

Introduction

Welding is a major fabrication method and widely used to join materials through a fusion process. Numerous metallic materials can be joined using various welding techniques, including friction stir welding, friction stir spot welding, ultrasonic welding, gas tungsten arc welding, laser welding, gas metal arc welding, and arc stud welding (ASW). All of these methods have different advantages and disadvantages in terms of cost, appropriateness, labor, training, efficiency, time, temperature, and simplicity [4,5,6,7,8,9]. The effects of friction stir welding parameters on the microstructure and mechanical properties of AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel (SS) joints were investigated by Kumar et al who used different tool rotational speeds. The authors suggested that a higher tool rotational speed results in Metals 2018, 8, 326; doi:10.3390/met8050326 www.mdpi.com/journal/metals

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