A Study on Welding Quality of Robotic Arc Welding Process Using Mahalanobis Distance Method

Abstract

In robotic GMA (Gas Metal Arc) welding process, heat and mass inputs are coupled and transferred by the weld arc and molten base material to the weld pool. The amount and distribution of the input energy are basically controlled by the obvious and careful choices of welding process parameters in order to accomplish the optimal bead geometry and the desired mechanical properties of the quality weldment. To make effective use of automated and robotic GMA welding, it is imperative to predict online faults for bead geometry and welding quality with respect to welding parameters, applicable to all welding positions and covering a wide range of material thickness. To successfully accomplish this objective, two sets of experiment were performed with different welding parameters; the welded samples from SM 490A steel flats adopting the bead-on-plate technique were employed in the experiment. The experimental results of current and voltage waveforms were used to predict the magnitude of bead geometry and welding quality, and to establish the relationships between weld process parameters and online welding faults. MD (Mahalanobis Distance) technique is employed for investigating and modeling of GMA welding process and significance test techniques were applied for the interpretation of the experimental data. Statistical models developed from experimental results which can be used to control the welding process parameters in order to achieve the desired bead geometry based on weld quality criteria.