Visualizing the influence of the process parameters on the keyhole dimensions in plasma arc welding

Abstract

The keyhole status and its dimensions are critical information determining both the process quality and weld quality in plasma arc welding (PAW). It is of great significance to measure the keyhole shape and size and to correlate them with the main process parameters. In this study, a low-cost vision system is developed to visualize the keyhole at the backside of the test-pieces in PAW. Three stages of keyhole evolution, i.e. initial blind stage (non-penetrated keyhole), unstable stage with momentarily disappeared keyhole and quasi-steady open keyhole stage (fully-penetrated keyhole), are measured in real-time during the PAW tests on stainless steel test-pieces of thickness 8 mm. Based on the captured images of keyhole under different welding conditions, the correlations of the main welding process parameters (welding current, welding speed, plasma gas flow rate) with the keyhole length, width and area are visualized through vision measurement. It lays a solid foundation for implementing keyhole stability control and process optimization in keyhole PAW.