Effect of current waveforms on metal transfer in pulsed gas metal arc welding

摘要

With new types of welding power supply based on higher performance power electronic devices and digital control techniques, advanced pulse waveforms can be produced to offer more characteristics that can be fine tuned to optimize the welding process. In this paper, pulsed current waveforms with four basic parameters and six secondary parameters are used to study the effect of waveform parameters on the mode of metal transfer in pulsed gas metal arc welding (GMAW-P). An experimental system is developed to sense, observe and analyse the images of droplet/wire, and the transient data of welding current and arc voltage. Experiments are conducted to study the influence of the ratio of the pulsing-current time to the droplet-detachment time as well as the droplet-detachment current level on the mode of metal transfer. Appropriate sets of welding conditions including pulse waveform and parameters are obtained to achieve the ideal transfer mode of one-droplet-per-pulse in GMAW-P.