Investigation on CO and Microparticles Concentrations Produced in MAG-M Welding Process

Abstract

It is well known that CO and microparticles generated during GMAW welding processes can affect the welder's health and the environment quality and should be avoided. The main goal of the research was to quantitatively assess the concentrations of CO and microparticules resulting through melted wire - shielding gas - welding pool interaction, specific to fusion welding process, in particular MAG-M (Metal Active Gas with Corgon shielding gas)) process. The concentrations of microparticles and emission of CO developed by several combinations of filler metal and shielding gas, such as ordinary solid wire, basic flux-cored wire, rutile flux-cored wire, metal powder cored wire, low fume metal powder cored wire and Corgon 18, as shielding gas mixture, have been monitored and investigated in detail. The experimental data, achieved for different wire feed speed values, were collected by using special devices as Multilyzer NG and MicroDust Pro and further processed, plotted and comparatively analysed. The analysis revealed that the low fume rutile flux-cored wire significantly developed lower concentrations of microparticles and CO, in comparison with the other types of wires used in MAG-M welding process, and a better protection of the environment would be achieved. Important conclusions related to the influence of the wire type on the concentrations of CO and microparticles produced during MAG-M welding process have been drawn and some recommendations useful for the producers of welded structures are provided at the end of the paper.