Applied Soft Computing 11 (2011) 5198–5204

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Applied Soft Computing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/asoc

Optimization of parameters of submerged arc weld using non conventional

techniques
J. Edwin Raja Dhas a,∗ , S. Kumanan b,1
a
Department of Automobile Engineering, Noorul Islam Centre for Higher Education, Nagercoil 629 180, Tamil Nadu, India
b
Department of Production Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli 620 015, Tamil Nadu, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In submerged arc welding (SAW), weld quality is greatly affected by the weld parameters such as welding
Received 8 May 2009 current, welding speed; arc voltage and electrode stickout since they are closely related to the geometry
Received in revised form 19 March 2011 of weld bead, a relationship which is thought to be complicated because of the non-linear character-
Accepted 23 May 2011
istics. However, trial-and-error methods to determine optimal conditions incur considerable time and
Available online 30 May 2011
cost. In order to overcome these problems, non-traditional methods have been suggested. Bead-on-plate
welds were carried out on mild steel plates using semi automatic SAW machine. Data were collected
Keywords:
as per Taguchi’s Design of Experiments and regression analysis was carried to establish input–output
Submerged arc welding
Optimization
relationships of the process. By this relationship, an attempt was made to minimize weld bead width,
Weld parameters a good indicator of bead geometry, using optimization procedures based on the genetic algorithm (GA)
Genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to determine optimal weld parameters. The optimized
Particle swarm optimization values obtained from these techniques were compared with experimental results and presented.
© 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction the welding process model is to use experimental design and

Weld quality plays an important role as it improves mate-
rial strength, hardness and toughness of the product. Quality of a
welded product is evaluated by different parameters like weld bead
geometry, deposition rate, and hardness. These characteristics are
controlled by a number of welding parameters like welding current,
welding speed, arc voltage and electrode stickout and, therefore,
to attain good quality, is important to set up the proper welding
process parameters [9,18].
Usually, the desired welding parameters are determined based
on traditional methods like welder’s experiences, charts and hand-
books (preferred values) which are simple and inexpensive. Later
with the help of human weld experts advanced computer tech-
niques were developed to help welding engineers in determining
welding conditions [5]. But this does not ensure that the selected
welding parameters result in satisfactory welding and this method
is not applicable to new welding process. To overcome this prob-
lem, various methods of obtaining the desired output variables
through models to correlate input variables with output vari-
ables have been developed. A widely used method to determine
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 04651 250566/366297;
fax: +91 04651 257266/250266.
E-mail address: edwinrajadhas@rediffmail.com (J.E.R. Dhas).
1
Tel.: +91 0431 2503033/2503507; fax: +91 0431 2500133/2503502.
regression analysis [24]. Fractional factorial techniques [8] were
used to predict dimensions of the weld bead in automatic SAW.
Then mathematical models [19] are used to predict weld bead
geometry for the flux cored welding process. Quality engineering
methods of Taguchi, employing design of experiments provide an
efficient and systematic way to optimize designs for performance,
quality and cost. It is one of the most important statistical tools
for designing high quality systems at reduced cost [22]. Taguchi
method and regression analysis were applied to determine the pro-
cess parameters of submerged arc welding process [14]. Multiple
regression analysis [23,16,15,10] has been applied to predict the
process parameters for gas metal arc welding. They are limited in
application due to difficulties in modeling, time consuming and
are cumbersome. Due to the inadequacy and inefficiency of the
mathematical models to explain the nonlinear properties existing
between the input and output parameters of welding, intelligent
systems such as Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and fuzzy logic
systems have been emerged. Artificial Neural Networks [17,12]
were used to predict the weld bead geometry and penetration in
shielded metal-arc welding. Although they have several advantages
compared with conventional regression models, neural network
modeling requires extensive time, lot of samples and cost to train
the network. But optimization using regression modeling, neu-
ral network, and Taguchi methods could be effective only when
the welding process was set near the optimal conditions or at a
stable operating range [13]. To overcome the above problem non

1568-4946/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.asoc.2011.05.041
 J.E.R. Dhas, S. Kumanan / Applied Soft Computing 11 (2011) 5198–5204 5199

conventional techniques have been used to find out the optimal

solution.
Genetic algorithm [6] is effective tool in finding near-optimal
conditions. It does not need derivatives of objective functions,
but needs only the values of objectives for optimization. Thus,
this method cannot be accepted by undesirable phenomena such
as burn-through. The algorithm necessitated a greater number of
experiments, however, when it desired to find a better condition
than near optimal. Moreover, the algorithm could not produce
a mathematical model between the input and output variables.
Genetic algorithm was used to optimize parameters of, arc weld-
ing [11,3], submerged arc welding in the hardfacing process [1] and
weld bead geometry in plasma transferred arc hardfaced austenitic
stainless steel plates [21]. PSO another non conventional method,
is inspired by the ability of flocks of birds, schools of fish, and
herds of animals to adapt to their environment, find rich sources of
food, and avoid predators by implementing an information sharing
approach [4]. Recently, optimization of machining parameters for
the milling operation and optimization of friction welding parame-
ters was carried using particle swarm optimization algorithm [2,20]
was carried out. This paper explores the application of Taguchi
method and non conventional techniques, GA and PSO comput-
ing techniques to find optimal set of welding process variables that
produce the desired weld bead width in submerged arc weld of
mild steel. Results obtained are compared and presented. Fig. 1. Schematic representation of submerged arc welding process.

2. Experimentation and data collection Table 1

Experimental layout using L8 orthogonal array.
The schematic diagram of the SAW process is shown in Fig. 1. Trial nos. Welding Arc voltage (V) Welding speed Electrode
Submerged arc welding involves formation of an arc between a con- current (A) (mm/min) stickout (mm)
tinuously fed bare wire electrode and the work-piece. The process 1 1 1 1 1
uses a flux to generate protective gas and slag, and also helps to 2 1 1 1 2
control the composition of the deposited metal by providing alloy- 3 1 2 2 1
ing elements to the weld pool. Prior to welding a thin layer of flux 4 1 2 2 2
5 2 1 2 1
powder is placed on the work-piece surface. The arc moves along
6 2 1 2 2
the joint line with the arc fully submerged in flux. As the arc is 7 2 2 1 1
completely covered by the flux layer, heat loss is minimum. This 8 2 2 1 2
provides a thermal efficiency as high as 95%. It produces no visi-
ble arc light, welding is spatter free and there is no need for fume
extraction. weld is performed on the weld plates by varying the initial parame-
Experiments are designed as per the L8 orthogonal array layout ters. The working ranges for the process parameters were selected
as shown in Table 1 to avoid systematic errors penetrating the sys- from the ASW handbook. Each trial of experiment was done twice
tem and were conducted at M/s. Ind Auto Products, Tiruchirappalli, and the average value is taken. Then the specimens were polished
India. SURARC semiautomatic welding equipment with a constant- using the belt grinder and by series of emery sheets of grade 0/1,
voltage, rectifier type power source, 1200-A capacity was used to 0/2, 0/3, and 0/4. Finally the specimens were gently etched by 2% of
join 500 mm × 50 mm × 6 mm, IS: 2062 (0.25% C, 0.20% Si, 0.75% Mn Nital solution and immediately dried by blower. Profile projector
and balance Fe) mild steel plates. Copper coated electrodes of AWS with 10× magnification is used to measure weld bead width and
ER70S-6, 3.15-mm-diameter in coil form (ESAB brand) and basic- the observed values are shown in Table 2.
fluoride-type (equivalent to DIN 8557) granular flux were used. Mathematical models are useful for selecting appropriate pro-
Square butt joint with a 1-mm root opening was selected to join cess parameters to achieve the desired weld bead quality [7]. In
the plates in the flat position, keeping the electrode positive and order to predict the width of the weld bead using the experi-
perpendicular to the plate as per the experimental set up explained mental data, the statistical method of multiple regression analysis
previously. Single pass welding bead on joint weld with square butt (MRA) was used. Welding current, arc voltage, welding speed and

Table 2
Observed values from the test specimen.

Trial nos. Welding Arc voltage (V) Welding speed Electrode Weld bead
current (A) (mm/min) stickout (mm) width (mm)

1 360 25 400 19 13.0

2 360 25 400 25 11.0
3 360 30 420 19 12.5
4 360 30 420 25 13.5
5 390 30 420 19 14.5
6 390 30 420 25 14.0
7 390 26 400 19 14.5
8 390 26 400 25 15.0
5200 J.E.R. Dhas, S. Kumanan / Applied Soft Computing 11 (2011) 5198–5204

Start

Initial Population
(I, V, S & E)

Objective Function = 118 + (0.0056I ) - (1.3167 V) - (0.1708 S) - ( 6.33 E) + (0.0028

IE) + (0.0667VE) + (0.0083 S E)

Roulette Selection

Single Point Crossover

Mutation

New population

No
Satisfy termination
criteria?

Yes

Stop

Fig. 2. Procedure of GA to optimize SAW process parameters.

electrode stickout are established as independent parameters and
weld bead width as independent parameters in this study and the
relationship between the weld parameters is given in Eq. (1). The
regression analysis used in this study was SPSS, a commercial Sta-
tistical Program for Social Science software.
Weld bead width (mm) = 118 + (0.0056I)
−(1.3167V ) − (0.1708S) − (6.33E)
+(0.0028IE) + (0.0667VE) + (0.0083SE)
where I = welding current (A), V = arc voltage (V), S = welding speed
(mm/min), and E = electrode stickout (mm).
The validity of the equation is confirmed by calculating R2 -value
which is equal to 0.814, having high coefficient of correlation.
tions initially distributed over the whole function space and quickly
identifies the sub domain in which the global minimum function
is located, by maintaining the constant exploration of the search
space. Hence it is possible by genetic algorithm to reach accurately
and reliably the global optimum solution in a short computation
time.
Optimization procedure for SAW using proposed genetic algo-
rithm is shown in Fig. 2. Initial population is the possible number of
solutions of the optimization problem, and each possible solution
(1) is called an individual. In this work, a possible solution is formed
by values of the welding current, arc voltage, welding speed, and
electrode stickout. Evaluation of the fitness function in a GA is a
necessary procedure to decide the survival of each individual. The
steps used in optimization by GA are:

3. Weld parameter optimization by GA
Equation solved by different analytical/iterative methods (such
as Newton method and Bisection method) may converge to a sta-
tionary point and there is no guarantee that the solution converges
to global optimum. But genetic algorithm uses a population of solu-
1. Determine the objective i.e., minimization of bead width
2. Identify the system parameters that are affecting the objective
function.
3. Build an analytical/experimental model of the system and
express the objective function as the function of a system.
4. Formulate an objective function shown in Eq. (1).
 J.E.R. Dhas, S. Kumanan / Applied Soft Computing 11 (2011) 5198–5204 5201

Table 3
SAW input parameters.
360 25 410 23
Process parameters Ranges

Welding current, amperes 360–390

Arc voltage, volts 25–26
Welding speed, mm/min 400–420
Electrode stickout, mm 19–25

360 26 410 23
5. Formulate the constraints of the objective function as:
which are the constraints
Fig. 4. Mutation of a gene in developed GA for near optimal weld bead width.
360 ≤ welding current ≤ 390
25 ≤ arc voltage ≤ 30
Table 4
400 ≤ welding speed ≤ 420
Parameters for GA computations.
19 ≤ electrode stickout ≤ 25
Population size 20
Number of generations allowed 100
The objective function is taken from Eq. (1) to minimize bead
Mutation rate 1%
width using arc voltage, welding current, welding speed and elec- Crossover rate 80%
trode stickout as SAW process parameters. It is assumed that the Type of crossover Single point
near optimum point is within the following experimental region, Type of selection Roulette wheel
defined by the GA search ranges as given in Table 3. Initial popula-
tion is created using the welding process parameters and random
solutions are obtained for weld bead width. Fitness function values where each entry has a probability rate of being mutated. In the
of each individual are calculated for the current populations using second step, the algorithm replaces each selected entry by a random
the objective function. Genetic operators (reproduction, crossover number selected uniformly from the range for that entry. Fig. 4
and mutation) are employed to produce the next generation of the shows the mutation of a gene.
new population. In GA procedure, population size, crossover rate and mutation
Selection: The selection process is based on spinning the rate are important factors which determine the performance of the
roulette wheel n times. The individuals selected from the roulette algorithm. Large population size or a higher crossover rate allows
wheel technique selection process are stored in a mating pool. exploration of solution space and reduces the chances of settling
Crossover: After selection, crossover proceeds in three steps. for poor solution. The parameters for GA computations are given
First, two strings (referred to as parents) are selected randomly in Table 4. The mutation rate is chosen as 1% and crossover rate is
from the mating pool. Second, an arbitrary location (called the 80%, i.e., 80% of the pairs are crossed, whereas the remaining 20%
crossover site) in both strings is selected randomly. Third, the por- are added to the next generation without crossover. The final value
tions of the strings following the crossover site are exchanged of the objective function is constant for last 10 generations shows
between two parent strings to form two offspring strings. This that it is the best value for the problem.
crossover does not occur with all strings, but is limited by the
crossover rate. Fig. 3 shows the typical example for single point 4. Weld parameter optimization by PSO
crossover in GA in which two mating chromosomes are cut at one
point and the cuts are exchanged between the two parents. Evolutionary technique PSO is proposed to optimize SAW
Mutation: Mutation rate is set at a low value to avoid losing good parameters to achieve good quality of weld. Optimization proce-
strings. It also provides information that did not exist in the initial dure for SAW using PSO is shown in Fig. 5. Initial population is the
stage. Uniform mutation is a two-step process. First, the algorithm possible number of solutions (particles) of the optimization prob-
selects a fraction of the vector entries of an individual for mutation, lem, and each possible solution is called an individual. In this work,

Parent 2
Parent 1

360 25 400 19 380 30 410 23

Reproduction by cross over

360 25 410 23 380 30 400 19

Offspring 1 Offspring 2

Fig. 3. Crossover operation in developed GA for near optimal bead width.

5202 J.E.R. Dhas, S. Kumanan / Applied Soft Computing 11 (2011) 5198–5204

Create Initial Population (I, V, S and E)

Objective Function W = 118 + (0.0056 *I ) - (1.3167 *V) - (0.1708 *S) - (

6.33 *E) + (0.0028 I*E) + (0.0667 V *E) + (0.0083 S*E)

Obtain Pbest and Gbest values

Calculate particle velocity

Update particle position

No
Termination criteria met

Yes

Result

Fig. 5. Procedure for proposed PSO to optimize SAW process parameters.

a possible solution is formed by values of the welding current,
arc voltage, welding speed, and electrode stickout. It is assumed
that the near optimum point is within the following experimental
region, as given in Table 1. The objective function to minimize weld
bead width takes the form from Eq. (1).
Initial population is created using the welding process param-
eters (welding current, arc voltage, welding speed and electrode
stickout) and random solutions are obtained for weld bead width.
Fitness function values of each individual (particles) are calcu-
lated for the current populations using the objective function. The
best fitness value is stored as Pbest from history. From all parti-
cles choose the best fitness value called Gbest. For each particle,
calculate the velocity of the particle by
Velocity[] = w Velocity[] + C1 rand1 (Pbest[] − present[])
4.1. Proposed algorithm for the developed PSO model
1. Initialize each particle.
2. Calculate the fitness value for each particle. If the fitness value
is better than the best fitness value (Pbest) in history. Set the
current value as the new Pbest.
3. Choose the particle with the best fitness value of all the particles
as the Gbest.
4. For each particle, calculate the particle velocity according to Eq.
(2). The particle position is updated by Eq. (3). C1 , C2 are learning
factors. C1 = C2 = 1.4.
5. Particle velocities in each dimension are clamped to a maximum
velocity Vmax . If the sum of acceleration would cause the velocity
on that dimension to exceed Vmax , which is a parameter specified
by the user, the velocity in that dimension is limited to Vmax .

+C2 x rand2 (Gbest[] − present[]) (2) 4.2. Numerical illustration for developed PSO model

The numerical illustration for the developed PSO model to find

The particle position is updated by optimal parameters for weld bead width is given below.
Welding current, arc voltage, welding speed and electrode stick-
Present[] = Present[] + Velocity[] (3) out randomly calculated using the following formulae

Welding current, I = Imin + (Imax − Imin ) − rand()

rand1 and rand2 are two random functions in the range [0,1]
where C1 and C2 are two positive constants named learning factors Table 5
taken as 2 and w is the inertial weight taken as 0.5. The operator w Parameters for PSO computations.
plays the role of balancing the global search and the local search;
Population size 20
and is proposed to decrease linearly with time from a value of 1.4 to Dimension size 4
0.5. The entire process is terminated when it reaches the maximum Inertia weight 0.4–0.9
number of iterations. Parameters used for PSO computations are Number of iterations allowed 100
given in Table 5. Velocity factors, C1 and C2 1.4
 J.E.R. Dhas, S. Kumanan / Applied Soft Computing 11 (2011) 5198–5204 5203

Table 6
Comparison of results from developed GA and PSO models with experimental results.

Solution by Welding Arc voltage (V) Welding speed Electrode Near optimal weld
current (A) (mm/min) stickout (mm) bead width (mm)

GA 364.857 29.7828 419.144 19.67 12.82

PSO 361.0714 26.2714 419.238 19 12.75
Observed values 360 30 420 19 12.5

15.5
Arc voltage is calculated by
15
Arc voltage, V = Vmin + (Vmax − Vmin ) − rand()

Fitness value
14.5

Welding speed is calculated by 14

13.5
Welding speed, S = Smin + (Smax − Smin ) − rand()
13
Electrode stickout is calculated by
12.5
0 20 40 60 80 100
Electrode stickout, E = Emin + (Emax − Emin ) − rand()
Number of Iterations

These values are substituted in Eq. (1) and weld bead width are Fig. 6. Convergence of PSO for optimal weld bead width.
calculated.
Calculation of Pbest value: The minimum weld bead width for 5. Results and discussion
each initial solution is considered as the Pbest value. This is the best
value of the particular solution only. Experiments are designed as Taguchi’s principles and are con-
Calculation of Gbest value: The minimum weld bead width for ducted in a semi automatic SAW machine using L8 orthogonal
the initial solution or whole iteration is considered as the Gbest array. Data observed from experiments is used to develop an objec-
value. tive function. Evolutionary computing techniques GA and PSO are
Let us consider that the particle sequence at iteration ‘n’ is invoked to optimize the parameters of SAW, for optimal weld qual-
ity. Convergence of the developed PSO model for optimal weld bead
Present [] = 370 27 405 23
width is shown in Fig. 6. From the figure it is evident that the min-
imal weld bead width is obtained at the 81st iteration. The weld
where n = iteration number.
bead width is gradually increasing up to the 81st iteration. Then
Let the particles best (Pbest) sequence be
the weld bead width is constant for further iterations.
Pbest = 390 28 415 24 The performances of proposed and developed GA and PSO algo-
rithms to optimize parameters of SAW are compared. Table 6 shows
Let the particles global best (Gbest) sequence till the present the comparison of results from developed GA and PSO model with
iteration be experimental values. PSO model gives optimal results than GA
Gbest = 380 29 410 25 model. Also it converges to the global optimum solution at the faster
rate. Further number of iterations refines the optimal value and
The velocity of the particle is found out by the Eq. (2). gives more accurate results. The reason is that PSO searches solu-
Where C1 = C2 = 1.4. tion in the search space different from GA. PSO maintains internal
rand1 is randomly generated as 0.456 memory to store the Gbest and Pbest solutions. Each individual
rand2 is randomly generated as 0.539 in the population will try to emulate the Gbest and Pbest solu-
tions in the memory through updating by two PSO equations. But
Pbest –Present = 20 1 20 1 GA, iteratively searches for several good individuals in the popula-
tion, and make the population to emulate the best solutions found
Gbest –Present = 10 2 5 2 in that generation through reproduction, crossover and mutation
operators. GA requires substantial computational time to perform
Substituting all values in Eq. (2) by taking previous velocity as decision making. Hence the effectiveness of PSO in finding the true
10 2 5 1 and inertia weight w = 0.5
V [] =0.5* (10 2 5 1 ) + 1.4 * 0.456 (20 1 20 1) +1.4 * 0.539 (10 2 5 2)
= 25.37 3.13 16.04 3.27
New sequence = Present[n] + V []
= global optimal solution is competent than GA. Fig. 7 illustrates a
395.3 30.13 421.1 26.27 good conformability of the developed models to the real process.
Overall, the results indicate that both PSO and GA algorithms
Generated new particles in the new sequence beyond the limit can be used in the optimizing the parameters of a SAW machine.
are scaled and are brought within the bounds before fitness is eval- The target values can be set as per the requirement based on the
uated. application. The models are developed in the MATLAB platform,
Gbest value for overall iteration: Gbest value is obtained at the which is highly reliable, adaptable and very user friendly. Further-
81st iteration. more, control parameters and objective function are involved in
5204 J.E.R. Dhas, S. Kumanan / Applied Soft Computing 11 (2011) 5198–5204

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Dr. J. Edwin Raja Dhas is a Professor and Head in the Department of Automobile
Engineering at Noorul Islam University, India He obtained his Doctoral Degree from
References National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. His research interests are
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