Open Access
Subscription Access
Open Access
Subscription Access
Investigation on the Effect of Activating Flux on Tungsten Inert Gas Welding of Austenitic Stainless Steel Using AC Polarity
Subscribe/Renew Journal
Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding is a popular joining process due to its inherent capability in producing superior quality welding in a wide range of materials. However, lower productivity of it paves the way for introduction of a number of variants of TIG welding, including Flux Bounded TIG (FB-TIG) welding and Activated TIG (A-TIG) welding. In this paper, variations of weld morphology and characteristics with heat input in AC A-TIG welding of both bead-on-plate and butt joining of 6mm thick 316L stainless steel plates using TiO2, Cr2O3 and Fe2O3 as activating flux and a stainless steel filler material are investigated. Results are also compared with that obtained in conventional TIG welding. Variations of various weld characteristics viz. depth of penetration, width of weld bead, reinforcement, Reinforcement Form Factor (RFF), and Penetration Shape Factor (PSF) against change in heat input are analyzed and compared. It is observed that TiO2 and Fe2O3 fluxes effectively enhance the penetration due to increase in fluidity and wettability of molten metal and, at the same time, reduce the width of weld bead; whereas, Cr2O3 flux gives inferior results as it reduces penetration instead of increasing it as compared to conventional TIG welding.
Keywords
Welding, A-TIG, Activated Flux, Heat Input, Depth of Penetration.
User
Subscription
Login to verify subscription
Font Size
Information
- Lin HS and Wu TM (2012); Effects of activating flux on weld bead geometry of inconel 718 alloy TIG welds, Mat and Manuf Proc, 27, pp.1457-1461.
- Gurevich SM, Zamkov VN and Kushnirenko NA (1965); Improving the penetration of titanium alloys when they are welded by argon tungsten arc process, Avtomatich Svarka, 9(4).
- Howse DS and Lucas W (2000); Investigation into arc constriction by active fluxes for tungsten inert gas welding; Sc and Tech of Welding and Joining, 5(3), pp.189-193.
- Tseng KH (2013); Development and application of oxide-based flux powder for tungsten inert gas welding of austenitic stainless steels, Powder Tech, 233, pp.72-79;.
- Kuo CH, Tseng KH and Chou CP (2011); Effect of activated TIG flux on performance of dissimilar welds between mild steel and stainless steel, Key Engg Mat, 479, pp.74-80.
- Dey HC, Albert SK, Bhaduri AK and Mudali UK (2013); Activated flux TIG welding of titanium, Welding in the World, 57(6), pp.903-912.
- Magudeeswaran G, Nair SR, Sundar L and Harikannan N (2014); Optimization of process parameters of the activated tungsten inert gas welding for aspect ratio of UNS S32205 duplex stainless steel welds, Defence Tech, 10(3), pp.251-260.
- Sambherao AB (2013); Use of activated flux for increasing penetration in austenitic stainless steel while performing GTAW, Int J Emerging Tech and Adv Engg, 3(12).
- Roy S, Samaddar S, Nasim Uddin Md., Hoque A, Mishra S and Das S (2017); Effect of activating flux on penetration in ATIG welding of 316 stainless steel, Indian Welding Journal, 50(4), pp. 72-80.
- Mondal A, Saha MK, Hazra R and Das S (2016); Influence of heat input on weld bead geometry using duplex stainless steel wire electrode on low alloy steel specimens, Cogent Engg, 3(1), pp.1143598/1-14.
Abstract Views: 526
PDF Views: 11