International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research (IJSETR)

Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2017, ISSN: 2278 -7798

Effect of Welding Parameters on the Strength

of Butt Weld Joint using TIG Welding
Nerella. Kranthi Teja1, Dr. B. Amar Nagendram2
1
Post Graduate student, Department of Mechanical Engineering (M. Tech. Machine Design), DMS SVH
College of Engineering, Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India.
2
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering , DMS SVH College of Engineering, Machilipatnam,
Andhra Pradesh, India.

Abstract: - One of the most effective metal joining process is

welding which involves joining of two or more similar or
different materials by heating to plastic state. Welding
strength is an important parameter in all metal joints used in
industrial applications. It is mostly used in industrial
applications, in fabrication, maintenance and repair of parts.
In this thesis for V-groove butt weld joint the tensile strength
is find out by varying welding speed and included angle. For
V-groove geometry plates with included angles from 350, 450
and 500 will be made from structural steel (A633 Grade E) by
using TIG welding process. Welding speeds used for the
experimentation are 0.4 cm/sec, 0.8 cm/sec and 1.20cm/sec.
Optimization of ultimate tensile strength is done by using Fig-1.1 Welding equipment’s
Minitab software by designing Taguchi parameter orthogonal
array.

Index Terms: - TIG welding, included angle, welding speed,

Butt weld joint, and Tensile strength.

1. INTRODUCTION

Welding is simply a method of bonding two pieces

of metal. While there are other methods to join metals
(brazing, riveting and soldering, for instance), welding is a
method of choice for its efficiency, strength and versatility.
TIG welding is preferred over other methods.
1.1. TIG Welding: -
TIG welding stands for Tungsten Inert Gas
welding and is technically called as Gas Tungsten Arc
Welding or GTAW. The process uses a non-consumable
tungsten electrode that delivers current to the welding arc.
Inert gas argon is used to protect and cool the tungsten and
weld puddle. TIG welding is identical to the oxy-acetylene
gas welding which uses a filler material for build-up or
reinforcement. TIG welding is often mentioned as the Heli
arc welding, originating from an early Hobart "Heli-Arc"
machine. The name comes because of using helium gas for
shielding the electric arc. TIG welding was developed in the
1930s and used during II World War as the preferred
method for welding the aircraft parts. Earlier, some alloy
steels and aluminum were welded with a torch, which
requires significant skill and time, while TIG welding made
that ease. Fig-1.1 and 1.2 shows the TIG welding set up.
Fig- 1.2 TIG welding machine
The TIG process setup consists of an electric torch
and a filler rod for feeding into the molten puddle. The
capability to soft start and soft stop the heat makes the TIG
process different from other types of welding processes.
Some people uses the accelerator pedal to control the heat if
they are working on a bench and others like fingertip
remotes on the torch if they are working in areas that are
considered out of position. Remote can be used for
adjusting the heat while welding.
1.2. Welding joint:-
Two or more pieces of metal or plastic are joined
together is known as a joint which may be point or edge.
The joints are prepared by welding two or more pieces of
metal or plastic for a particular geometry. According to
American Welding Society there are five types of joints
such as butt, lap, corner, edge, and tee joints. At the joint
where actual welding takes place may have different

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 International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research (IJSETR)
Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2017, ISSN: 2278 -7798
configuration. Butt weld joint is preferred over other joints
for the experimentation.
2. OBJECTIVE OF THE WORK
Butt welds:-
In this thesis, materials with V-groove geometry
In butt weld joints two pieces of metal to be joined
different models of plate with various included angles from
are in the same plane. They require only some preparation
350, 450 and 500 will be made from structural steel (A633
and can be used for thin sheet metals which can be welded
Grade E). Different welding speeds 0.4 cm/sec, 0.8 cm/sec
with single pass. Least amount of welding material possible
and 1.20 cm/sec are used to prepare a V-groove butt weld
should be used for obtaining strong welds. Butt welds are
joint using TIG welding. Effect of welding parameters on
preferred in automated welding processes for its ease of
the tensile strength of weld joint will be analyzed.
preparation. When metals are being welded in the absence
of human guidance, there will 3. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
be no operator for making adjustments in case of non-ideal
joint preparation. Because of this possibility, butt welds are 3.1. Material:-
utilized for their simplistic design to feed through
automated welding machines efficiently. Material used for the preparation of plates is
structural steel A633 (Grade E).The chemical composition
1.3. The Taguchi Philosophy–Robust Design:- of the material is given in the table

Taguchi Design of Experiments: Table 3.1.1 Chemical Composition of Material

For making a new product many factors and input Elements C M P S Si V N

variables should be taken into consideration. The Taguchi
philosophy is a best approach for defining the finest Weight 0.22 1.15- 0.020 0.010 0.15- 0.04- 0.03
combination of inputs to produce a product or service using % 1.50 0.50 0.11
the Design of Experiments (DOE) methodology for
determining parameter levels. DOE is an essential tool for 3.2. Preparation of welding joints:-
designing the processes and products. This is a method for
categorizing the accurate inputs and parameter levels for
designing a good quality products or services. Taguchi Different models of V-Groove butt weld joints are
method approaches to get a robust design. prepared by using TIG welding by varying the welding
parameters.
• Robust design can be achieved by the following
three methods Experimentation images:-
– Concept design
– Parameter design
– Tolerance design

We focus on Parameter design for experimentation.

A. Parameter Design:-
 It consists of selecting the Control
factors/parameters and their “optimal”
levels. The objective is to make the design
Robust!
 Control factors are the process variables
which influences the management. Such as
procedures used and the type and amount of
training required.
 There is a complex relationship between
the design/product performance and control
factors.
 The best parameter levels can be find out
by experimentation.
Fig:
3.2.1&3.2.2 Work Pieces

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 International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research (IJSETR)
Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2017, ISSN: 2278 -7798

3.3. Experimentation:-

Tensile test is done on welded metal joints to find

out the ultimate tensile strength. The values obtained from
the tensile test are optimized by using Minitab software
which involves designing of Taguchi orthogonal array. For
the experiment welding parameters selected are shown in
table: 3.3.1 and Taguchi orthogonal array is shown in Table:
3.3.2.

Table: 3.3.1 Welding Parameters

PROCESS LEVEL1 LEVEL2 LEVEL3

PARAMETERS

WELDING SPEED 0.4 0.8 1.20

( cm/s)

GROOVE 35 45 50
ANGLE(0)

Fig: 3.2.3&3.2.4 welding process

Table: 3.3.2 Taguchi Orthogonal Array

GROOVE ANGLE
WELDING SPEED
(0)
( cm/s)

35 0.4

35 0.8

35 1.2

45 0.4

Fig: 3.2.5 Finished welding components 45 0.8

45 1.2

50 0.4

50 0.8

50 1.2

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 International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research (IJSETR)
Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2017, ISSN: 2278 -7798
Observations:- Factors:-

Observations are recorded by running the experiments.

Observed ultimate tensile strengths are given in the Table:
3.3.3.

Table: 3.3.3 Observations

GROOVE WELDING ULTIMATE

ANGLE(0) SPEED TENSILE
STRENGTH
( cm/s) (MPa)

35 0.4 375

35 0.8 410

35 1.2 451.197 Fig: 3.4.2

45 0.4 403

45 0.8 440.581

45 1.2 372

50 0.4 375.287

50 0.8 369

50 1.2 378

3.4. Optimization of Ultimate Tensile Strength using

Minitab Software:-

Design of Orthogonal Array: Fig: 3.4.3

First Taguchi Orthogonal Array is designed in

Minitab17 to calculate S/N ratio and Means which steps is
given below:- Optimization of Parameters:-

Fig: 3.4.1 Fig: 3.4.4

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 International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research (IJSETR)
Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2017, ISSN: 2278 -7798

Terms:

Fig: 3.4.5

Fi
g: 3.4.7

Fig: 3.4.5 Taguchi method aims on using the signal–to–noise

Analyze Taguchi Design – Select Responses
(S/N) ratio such that we can find better responses which
enables us to reduce the quality characteristic variation
caused by uncontrollable parameters. The tensile strength is
considered as the quality characteristic with the concept of
"the larger-the-better". For S/N ratio the larger-the-better is:

S/N = -10 *log (Σ (1/n)*(1/Y2))

Where n is the number of measurements in a

trial/row, in this case, n=1 and y is the measured value in a
run/row. The S/N ratio values are calculated by taking into
consideration above Eqn. and by using Minitab 17 software.

Final output values

Fig: 3.4.6

Fig: 3.4.8

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 International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research (IJSETR)
Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2017, ISSN: 2278 -7798

4. RESULTS Table: 4.1. S/N Ratio larger the better for tensile strength
mean response table
The tensile strength values measured from the
experiments and their corresponding S/N ratio values are Level No. Groove Angle Welding Speed
listed in Table 4.1.
Level 1 52.28 51.71

Level 2 52.14 52.19

Level 3 51.46 52.02

From the table we can observe tensile strength is

greater when maintaining the groove angle at 350, and
welding speed 1.20 cm/sec according to the signal to noise
ratio. We can find the used parameters are optimum for the
experimentation.
Fig: 4.1
5. CONCLUSION
Graphs:-
The experiment designed by Taguchi method
fulfills the desired objective. Fuzzy interference system has
been used to find out the ultimate tensile strength .The all
possible values have been calculated by using MINITAB 17
software. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) helps to find out
the significance level of the each parameter. The optimum
value was find out by using MINITAB-17 software.

The welding parameters are welding speed, and

groove angle for TIG welding of work piece steel. In this
work, the optimal parameters of welding speed are 0.4 cm/s,
0.8 cm/s and 1.20 cm/s, groove angle 350, 450, 500.
Experimental work is conducted by considering the above
parameters. Ultimate tensile strength validated
experimentally.
Fig: 4.2 S/N ratio plot The experimental results are confirming the
validity of used Taguchi method for obtaining the welding
performance and optimizing the welding parameters in TIG
welding at welding speed 1.20 cm/s, and groove angle 350.

6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my sincere thanks to my

guide Dr. B. Amar Nagendram for his guidance,
thoughtful suggestions and moral support. I wish to express
my thanks to principal Dr. D.Srinivasa Rao and Head of
the Mechanical Department Sri T. Ravi Kumar. I would
like to acknowledge the support of Department of
Mechanical engineering DMS SVH College of engineering,
Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Fig: 4.3 Means plot

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 International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research (IJSETR)
Volume 6, Issue 11, November 2017, ISSN: 2278 -7798

7. REFERENCES

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