Development and Evaluation of Wire Feeding Pulsing Techniques for Arc Welding

Abstract

Applying pulsed wire feeding techniques is one of the new approaches for welding, such as for GTAW and GMAW. However, these techniques invariably require specific feeders and/or welding torches, limiting its implementation due to the high costs of the equipment. Thus, the current work aims to introduce and exploratorily evaluate techniques to pulse the wire feeding that works independently from the feeder and/or torch. The first technique is electromechanically driven, and the second one based on electromagnetics. The effects of amplitude and frequency of the pulsed feeding were evaluated in terms of weld bead formation over plates and of the corresponding electric signals. For GTAW, the pulsed wire feeding is capable of modifying the weld bead and make the metal transfer from the wire to the pool more regular. For GMAW, it was found that the pulsing of the wire feeding can interfere with the process, being capable of turning an irregular globular metal transfer into a regular one, while decreasing the mean current and affecting the bead formation. Overall, it is concluded that pulsed wire feeding can affect the processes, even when made independently from the feeder and torch, opening a field for development of derivative welding technologies.

Key-words:
Pulsed wire feeding; GTAW; GMAW