A Study on Productivity Improvement in Narrow Gap TIG Welding

Abstract

Adoption of narrow gap welding shall be increased for the butt joint of thick plate, because the deformation and welding cost is reduced by decrease of cross-sectional area. However, sometimes narrow gap causes defects such as lack of fusion since it has small groove angle and narrow groove width. Therefore, GMAW, GTAW and SAW process shall be adopted to narrow gap welding with small bead hight and low deposition rate.In this study, Super-TIG welding using C-type strip was applied to semi-narrow gap butt joint in order to increase the welding productivity. High deposition rate 10kg/hr was obtained by high current 600A without undercut, humping bead and other welding defects. Measuring the mean and standard deviation of the melting depth to evaluate the developed processes, the fusion line type was determined by measuring the difference between maximum and minium melting depth. Furthermore, a model on arch fusion line and linear fusion line was suggested in order to prevent LF on groove wall in narrow gap butt welding. Key words: Narrow gap, Butt welding, TIG welding, Super-TIG welding, Deposition rate, Melting depth, Fusion line