Abstract
Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding can be used to join limited thickness of workpiece for hard materials such as stainless steel. Use of the oxide flux while welding is one of the trustworthy techniques to improve arc penetration in TIG welding. Welding up to 10-mm-thick sheets without any joint preparation is possible in single pass by Activated-TIG (A-TIG) welding. In this study, oxide flux powder SiO2 mixed with acetone is used. A thin uniform layer of oxide flux is applied on joint before welding of AISI 304L austenitic stainless steel. Experiments are conducted according to L9 orthogonal array table of Taguchi’s method, in which arc gap, welding current, gas flow rate, and welding speed are the selected input parameters with three levels. Ultimate tensile strength test, microhardness test, and metallographic tests are conducted. To analyze the effect of heat input, three different heat input levels, namely, low heat, medium heat and high heat are taken. These samples are tested for tensile test, metallographic test, and microhardness tests. It is observed that activated flux SiO2 flux is very efficient to increase weld depth penetration and joint strength. It is also found that extent of grain coarsening increases with the increase in heat input.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
