Title: A study on quality of weld in flux cored arc welding process

Authors: Binoy K. Biswas; Asish Bandyopadhyay; Pradip K. Pal

Addresses: Mechanical Engineering Department, B.P. Poddar Institute of Management and Technology, Kolkata 700052, India ' Mechanical Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India ' Mechanical Engineering Department, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India

Abstract: Flux cored arc welding (FCAW) is a semi-automatic or fully automatic welding method that is widely used for welding large and thick sections, especially in the flat position. The welding can be performed with shielding gas (FCAW-G) or without shielding gas (FCAW-S). A tubular filler wire containing mixture of mineral flux and powder in the core of the tube is supplied on reels and fed through the welding gun in metal inert gas (MIG) welding. The process is popularly used in construction and fabrication of carbon steel, low alloy steel weldment in power plant equipment. Hence in this paper effects of the welding parameters on the quality of weldment have been discussed based on the experimental data obtained. The welding was performed on metal plates of boiler quality of steel using a semiautomatic gas metal arc welding (GMAW) machine. To predict the weld quality, experiments were conducted based on three-factor five levels Taguchi orthogonal array design matrix. Parametric optimisation has been done based on radiographic test, visual inspection and tensile test results.

Keywords: FCAW; flux cored arc welding; Taguchi methods; orthogonal array design; optimisation; radiographic test; visual inspection; tensile test; boiler quality steel; weld quality; gas metal arc welding; GMAW.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPTECH.2014.060619

International Journal of Precision Technology, 2014 Vol.4 No.1/2, pp.81 - 95

Published online: 30 Apr 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article