Wenchao Dong

Numerical simulation for welding pool and welding arc with variable active element and welding parameters

Abstract A numerical modelling of the welding arc and weld pool is established for moving argon shielded gas tungsten arc welding to systematically investigate the effect of the active element oxygen and the welding parameters on the Marangoni convection and the weld shape using FLUENT software. The different welding parameters will change the temperature distribution and gradient on the pool surface, and affect the strength of Marangoni convection and the weld shape. Under high oxygen content, the weld depth/width (D/W) ratio substantially depends on the welding parameters. A high welding speed or large electrode gap (arc length) will make the weld D/W ratio decrease. The weld D/W ratio initially increases and then remains constant around 0·5 with the increasing welding current. When the oxygen content is lower, the weld D/W ratio decreases with the increasing welding current. However, the weld D/W ratio is not sensitive to the welding speed or electrode gap. The predicted weld D/W ratio agrees well with the experimental results.

Effects of electrode bevel angle on argon arc properties and weld shape

A numerical modeling of coupled welding arc with weld pool is established using FLUENT software for moving shielded GTA welding to systematically investigate the effects of electrode bevel angle on the argon arc properties as well as the weld shape on SUS304 stainless steel. The calculated results show that the argon arc is constricted and the peak values of heat flux and shear stress on the weld pool decrease with increasing electrode bevel angle, while the radial distribution of heat flux and shear stress varying slightly. The weld shape is controlled by the pool flow patterns driving by the surface tension, gas shear stress, electromagnetic force and buoyancy. The Marangoni convection induced by surface tension plays an important role on weld shapes. All the weld shapes are wide and shallow with low weld metal oxygen content, while the narrow and deep weld shapes form under high weld metal oxygen content, which is related with the oxygen concentration in the shielding gas. The weld depth/width (D/W) ratio increases with increasing electrode bevel angle for high weld metal oxygen content and is not sensitive to the electrode bevel angle under low weld metal oxygen content. The calculated results for the weld shape, weld size and weld D/W ratio agree well with the experimental ones.

NUMERICAL STUDY FOR GTA WELD SHAPE VARIATION BY COUPLING WELDING ARC AND WELD POOL

A numerical modeling of the welding arc and weld pool is studied for moving GTA welding to investigate the effect of the surface active element oxygen and the plasma drag force on the weld shape. Based on the 2D axisymmetric numerical modeling of the argon arc, the heat flux, current density and plasma drag force are obtained under different welding currents. Numerical calculations to the weld pool development are carried out for moving GTA welding on SUS304 stainless steel with different oxygen contents 30 ppm and 220 ppm, respectively. The results show that the plasma drag force is another dominating driving force affecting the liquid pool flow pattern, except for the Marangoni force. The different welding currents will change the temperature distribution and plasma drag force on the pool surface, and affect the strength of Marangoni convection and the weld shape. The weld D/W ratio initially increases, followed by a constant value around 0.5 with the increasing welding current under high oxygen content. The weld D/W ratio under the low oxygen content slightly decreases with the increasing welding current. The predicted weld shape by simulation agrees well with experimental results.