THERMAL EFFICIENCY OF ARC-WELDING PROCESSES

A study was conducted on the arc and melting efficiency of the plasma arc, gas tungsten arc, gas metal arc, and submerged arc welding processes. The results of this work are extended to develop a quantitative method for estimating weld metal dilution in a companion paper. Arc efficiency was determined as a function of current for each process using A36 steel base metal. Melting efficiency was evaluated with variations in arc power and travel speed during deposition of austenitic stainless steel filler metal onto A36 steel substrates. The arc efficiency did not vary significantly within a given process over the range of currents investigated. The consumable electrode processes exhibited the highest arc efficiency (0.84), followed by the gas tungsten are (0.67) and plasma arc (0.47) processes. Resistive heating of the consumable GMAW electrode was calculated to account for a significant difference in arc efficiency between the gas metal arc and gas tungsten arc processes. A semi-empirical relation was developed for the melting efficiency as a function of net arc power and travel speed, which described the experimental data well. An interaction was observed between the arc and melting efficiency. A low arc efficiency factor limits the power delivered to the substrate which, in turn, limits the maximum travel speed for a given set of conditions. High melting efficiency is favored by high arc powers and travel speeds. As a result, a low arc efficiency can limit the maximum obtainable melting efficiency.