New GTAW variant for high-throughput aluminum welding

For aluminum joining, the gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) and the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) processes are widely used. The GTAW process is mainly used when high quality is required whereas the GMAW process allows higher throughput at a lower quality. Therefore, aluminum fabricators have to compro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Welding in the world 2018-03, Vol.62 (2), p.385-391
Main Authors: Siewert, E., Hussary, N., Schnick, M., Dreher, M., Schuster, H., Wagner, R., Eichler, S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aluminum
Chemistry and Materials Science
Gas metal arc welding
Gas tungsten arc welding
Materials Science
Metallic Materials
Metals
Polarity
Research Paper
Solid Mechanics
Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
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Summary:For aluminum joining, the gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) and the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) processes are widely used. The GTAW process is mainly used when high quality is required whereas the GMAW process allows higher throughput at a lower quality. Therefore, aluminum fabricators have to compromise between a high quality and a high productive welding process thus far. In this paper, a new GTAW welding variant is presented that operates in DCEP polarity (electrode as the anode) at high currents up to 450 A. The use of a second gas stream ensures a strong penetration and good arc stability. The welding performance of the new GTAW variant is compared to AC GTAW and pulsed GMAW. It enables high-quality welds for a wide thickness range between 2 and 10 mm at even higher welding speeds compared to GMAW.
ISSN:0043-2288
1878-6669
DOI:10.1007/s40194-018-0555-0