Tungsten Electrode Tip Geometry

John Moen

Wel 123

Mat Bell

08/04/21

When changing the tip geometry of the tungsten electrode it had a notable effect on the

corresponding weld bead. The angles I used in the experiment were a 60-degree angle, a 45-degree

angle, a 35-degree angle, a 35-degree angle with a flattened tip around 1/16 th and a 15-degree angle.

When I ran the tungsten electrode with the 60-degree angle the bead ran smoothly, there was nothing

special that I noticed with the bead or arc. it did have the deepest bead penetration of all the angles

tested. The 60-degree tungsten electrode also had the narrowest bead with of all the angles tested.

The arc that the electrode emitted was stable and easy to control and handled small variation in arc

length verry well. The 45-degree tungsten electrode had a wider bead compared to the 60-degree

electrode, the weld pool it created was more sluggish and harder to control. The 45-degree electrode

required a slower travel speed to maintain the clean weld puddle and it appeared to have shallower

penetration that the 60-degree electrode. The arc of 45-degree tungsten electrode was harder to

control, it required a little but of manipulation to try and maintain a uniform weld pool and bead with.

The 35-degree tungsten electrode was significantly more fluid that the other two electrodes. It required

a faster travel speed to keep up with the more fluid pool. The weld pool it created was also narrower

that the 45 degree and 60-degree tungsten electrodes but with less penetration. This could be do the

faster travel speed required when running the bead. The arc it generated was also wider which I found

interesting, but there was no difficulty in controlling it. The 35-degree tungsten electrode with the
blunted tip on the other hand was not as nice and the trait 35-degree electrode. It was significantly

more sluggish, and the weld pool was harder to maintain and required a significantly slower travel speed

to run successfully. The arc of the 35-degree blunted electrode was also less table that its counterpart

or the other electrodes, it seemed like it did not want to stabilize at first and appeared to have a twist in

the arc as it moved around the edge of the blunted tip. It had a narrower and les uniform bead than the

strait 35-degree electrode but appeared to have deeper penetration which I found interesting. The 15-

degree tungsten electrode had the narrowest bead size of the test group, it ran a verry fluid bead and

required a faster travel speed because of this which may be the reason the weld was so narrow, it had

the least penetration of the group, but the weld and arc were easy to control and performed well. I

then tested an unground tungsten electrode which had a 180 degree “angle” tip. This was probably the

most interesting of the test group. The electrode emitted a large cone arc of a slight reddish tint from

around 1/8th of an inch away from the tip of the electrode and the arc Colom did not emit from the

center of the electrode but from which ever edge of the flat electrode was closest to the table. The arc

was verry unstable and would rotate around the electrode almost constantly, and when I was able to get

a somewhat steady arc the bead it created was trash, the travel speed required to generate a weld pool

was excruciating slow and verry sluggish when it was finally created. The flat electrode was a fun

experiment but had no practical workability.