Study of the weld bead in the Metal

Active Gas (MAG) welding

Table of contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 1
Methods .................................................................................................................................................. 1
Parameters considered ....................................................................................................................... 1
Investigation of limit values ................................................................................................................ 1
Welding experiments .......................................................................................................................... 2
Results ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
Investigation of limit values. ............................................................................................................... 3
Welding experiments .......................................................................................................................... 3
Discussion ................................................................................................................................................ 4
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 4

Vocabulary:

Weld beam : Cordon de soudure

Welding : Soudure

S235/S355 : A type of steel

Melting bath : Bain de fusion

 Introduction
Arc welding is based on the principle of raising the temperature to the melting point by using
an electric arc. The heating created by the resistivity of the metals through which electricity travels
raises the temperature at the welding point to the temperature required for melting the metal.
Evolution of semi-automatic fusible wire welding, MIG/MAG welding adds protection of the welding
area under a protective gas.

In welding and more particularly in MAG welding, it is essential to know how to characterize
defects and how to avoid them. Therefore, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the process
input parameters whatever the situation.

The aim of this study is to determine the quantitative variations of the width of the weld bead,
figurehead of welding defects, according to different welding parameters. To achieve this goal, we will
study the width of the weld bead of a T-welding performed with MAG (Figure 1) under various
conditions of welding voltage, speed of the wire and advance rate.

Figure 1: Different types of shape defects.

Methods
Parameters considered
We consider the following parameters:

− a, width of the weld bead (mm)

− U, welding voltage (volt)
− Vf, output speed of the wire (mm.s-1)
− Va, advance rate (m.min-1)

We vary the latter three in order to observe under which conditions the anomalies appear. To limit the
possible combinations to be tested, we restrained the range of each parameter to its limit values.

Investigation of limit values

𝑉𝑓
It has been shown that varying δ = 𝑉𝑎 can be an accurate surrogate of varying Vf and Va
independently. In current practice, Va cannot be easily tuned. Therefore, Va is set to be constant.

Limit values were determined manually. Starting from optimal welding conditions (Uoptimal condition,
Vfoptimal condition), the voltage was first gradually increased to reach a critical value, Umax, where defaults
started to appear. A similar experiment was performed by gradually decreasing the output speed of
wire until failure, to obtain Vfmin.

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Vfmax was defined as follows:

𝑉𝑓𝑚𝑎𝑥 = 2 ∗ 𝑉𝑓𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 − 𝑉𝑓𝑚𝑖𝑛

Finally, Umin was established by gradually decreasing the voltage, starting from Uoptimal condition and Vfmax
as this condition is known to be more stringent.

Thereby, we define the optimal operating area as illustrated in Figure 2.

boundary parameters

Limit power
Gutter failure
Concave shape defect
U(V)

Compliant area

Convex shape defect

no electric arcing

Vf/Va
Figure 2: Optimal operating area (or compliant area) and types of defects according to conditions.

Welding experiments
The limit values previously determined allowed to define 9 test conditions illustrated in Figure 3. The
experiments were conducted on an automated welding MAG machine that offers high precision for U
and δ parameters tuning.

boundary parameters

Gutter failure Compliant area

Concave shape defect

no electric arcing

Figure 3: Testing conditions

For each test, 2 S235 steel plates (4 mm thick) were cut to build the T to be weld. The welding was
conducted with MAG with a S355 filler steel. As we were not interested in the structure of the material,
we used structure disturbing but very efficient plasma cutting. Finally, our specimens were polished
and chemically etched to observe the penetration of the weld.

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 Results
Investigation of limit values.
Limit values were manually defined as described in Table 1.

Min Optimal Max

U 19.8 V 22.4 V 25 V
Vf 2.6 mm/s 3.6 mm/s 4.6mm/s
Va 0.4 m/min
Table 1: Limit values of U and Vf

Welding experiments
The qualitative welding defects according to the test conditions are represented in Figure 4. We can
notice welding gutters when using 2.6 mm/s wire speed and concave defects with high wire speed
and low voltage.

(mm/s)

Figure 4 : results : pictures of the weld bead

For each welding experiment, the width of the weld bead is represented in Figure 5. We can
acknowledge an increase of the a parameter with an increase of the wire speed. However, the maximal
values of the latter parameter are obtained for optimal voltage conditions.

Figure 5 : width of the different weald bead

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 Discussion
Increasing the voltage increase the size of the melt and if δ=Vf/Va remains constant, the material
supply remains the same, which means that there is a limit voltage from which we have a lack of
material and therefore a concave weld and/or the appearance of gutters. However, this limit value of
U depends on the value of δ. Indeed, if we take the opposite experience, U constant, it is the decrease
of δ that reduce the material input for the same melt and thus create the same defects as before. We
therefore have a curve, increasing in the reference frame (U, δ), which determines the limit at which
channel defects appear. Same for concave defects, we have a similar curve from which the material
input is too high (or the voltage too low). Moreover, independently of these phenomena, if U is too
weak the electric arc would be too short to be able to weld, the machine risk colliding with the part.

The increase of the width of the weld bead with the speed of the thread was awaited as it translates
an increase of the supplied material. However, the results obtained when tuning the voltage conditions
are puzzling. Indeed, the average tension chosen gives the greatest width, whatever the wire speed.
And from this point on, increasing or decreasing this tension makes a lower. This phenomenon can be
related to two geometrical defects to be studied. On the one hand, increasing this voltage may increase
the size of the melting bath, and thus attack the rest of the part causing gutters to appear, or even
concave defects. On the other hand, reducing the tension leads that the metal not to be melted
correctly and thus, not be distribute adequately, creating convex defects. Each of these defects results
in the decrease of the weld bead width when using the same amount of material.

Conclusion
First, we determined during this study how to determine the optimal values for the welding
parameters. We have found appropriate parameters for our very specific case, but a possible follow-
up to this study would be to carry them out again but closer to this operating point, in order to optimize
these parameters even more.

Finally, more generally, we have improved our knowledge of the parameter setting and quality of
welds, the treatment of specimens for this type of study and the implementation of a welding
experience protocol.

The key of a good MAG welding setting is to fix the parameter Va/Vf to get the good quantity of steel
on the weld bead. Then the purpose is to fix the voltage to have an electric arcing and a small melting
bath.

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 Abstract
This study deals with MAG welding. The purpose is to understand the influence of the different
parameters on the quality of a T weld. We made some different weld with 9 different well choose
parameter couples. We tried to realise the different shape defect with limit parameters. Finally, we
showed the impact of the parameter Vf (wire speed) and U (voltage). Both must be optimised
depending on the size of the weld to avoid the different defect.