Effect of Feed Rate on Bead Dimensions in TIG Welding

Abstract

In every industry, some types of machines are used, and generally, the parts of machines are connected to each other with joints. The joints should be strong enough to bear the applied load to the structure. Welding is an important method of joining. In any welding process, the mechanical properties of the weld are closely related to the dimensions of the bead. In this investigation, the real experiments were performed with tungsten inert gas welding process to analyze the effect of feed rate on the dimensions of the bead. The input variables except the feed rate were fixed, as the current at 200 A, voltage at 10.5 V, travel speed or welding speed at 4.19 mm/s for whole the experimentation period. Only the rate of feed of electrode wire was varied, and the effect of this variation on weld width, depth of penetration, and reinforcement height was studied. Total 6 pairs of mild steel plates of dimensions 75 mm × 50 mm × 5 mm were welded for six variations of feed rate. The results were tabulated and were expressed in three diagrams one for depth of penetration, one for reinforcement height, and one for weld width. This study explains the sensitivity analysis of the effect of the feed rate on the three dimensions of the weld bead.