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Investigating the Effect of TIG Welding on the Surface Roughness of the

Welded Closure of Thin Stainless Steel Tubes
To cite this article: K. Al-Badani et al 2019 IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng. 611 012014

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AMRPT2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 611 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/611/1/012014

Investigating the Effect of TIG Welding on the Surface

Roughness of the Welded Closure of Thin Stainless Steel
Tubes

K. Al-Badani1,*, E. Elmshawet1,*, C. Tang1, T. Kaid1, L. Li1, J. Liu1, J. Wang1

and X. J. Ren1
1
Department of Maritime and Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and
Technology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 3AF

*Corresponding author

Abstract. Tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding of thin stainless steel tubes is an important
manufacturing process with many applications, in particular for the closure of sheathed
thermocouples tubes and thermocouple wells. During the welding process, the microstructure,
properties as well as the surface roughness is directly influenced by the setup of the welding
procedure and material properties. For the steel tubes of thermocouples, the surface roughness
also influences the appearance as well as the wetting behaviour between the probe surface and
liquid, which could affect the response of the probe or the maintenance when the probe is used
to measure the temperature of liquid and gaseous mediums. In this work, welding tests with
controlled parameters and analysis has been conducted on thin austenite stainless tubes of
different sizes, the surface roughness of the welded tube is characterised for different welding
settings. The data shows that the surface roughness varies between 1-3.5 microns and oxidation
patch significantly reduce the smoothness of the surface. The influence of the surface roughness
of the tube is investigated and their influence on the service conditions such as wetting/dripping
is discussed with reference to typical results from computational fluid dynamics (CFD)
simulation.
Keywords: micro-weldimg; thermocouple; TIG.

1. Introduction
Sheathed thermocouples are widely used in many industries for temperature measurement and process
control. In an insulated thermocouple, the welded tip and wires are embedded within an insulation
(normally MgO) covered by a sheath of protective material (normally stainless steels). Figure 1
illustrates the structure of two types of sheathed thermocouples. In an ungrounded junction, the
thermocouple junction is insulated from the sheath and the ground; for a grounded structure, the
thermocouple junction is an integral part of the sheath. The closure of the sheath tube directly influences
the response time and protection of the sensor. The joint of the thermocouple wires is normally welded
by Capacitor Discharge (CD); while the stainless tube is normally welded by Tungsten inert gas (TIG)
welding process [1-3].

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AMRPT2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 611 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/611/1/012014

Welded end of
stainless steel tube

Joint of disimiliar
metal wires for
temperature
sensing.

(a) (b)

Figure 1. (a) End of a ungrounded Sheathed thermocouple (b) End of a

grounded Sheathed thermocouple
Figure 1 Schematics showing the TIG welded closure on thin stainless tubes in an ungrounded Sheathed
thermocouple (a) and a grounded Sheathed thermocouple. Both processes involve welding closure of
thin stainless steel tubes.
The welding of the stainless tube is a complex process due to the material composition (i.e. multiple
alloying elements) and properties of stainless steels. The composition needs to be balanced to maintain
the corrosion resistance [4-5]. Stainless steels are known to have higher coefficient of thermal expansion
compared to carbon steels, so it is prone to distortion and stress inducement if a proper welding
procedure is not followed. In addition, stainless steel is a reactive metal that quickly forms an oxide
layer on the surface. Therefore, welding of thin stainless steel tubes is difficult. For thermocouples, the
shape of the sheath end needs to be properly controlled, as it directly influences the response time of the
temperature measurements. The microstructures and the mechanical properties of stainless steels are
relatively better researched [6-9], while works on the surface roughness of the welded tube are rather
limited. Surface roughness is an important issues [10-12]. The surface roughness is important for
thermocouples as it directly influences the colour and surface texture, it also influences the wetting
between the surface and the liquid or gas being measured [10]. In addition, an improved understanding
of the effect of welding parameters on the surface roughness is essential for improving the quality and
properties of thermocouples. In this work, welding tests with controlled parameters and analysis have
been conducted on stainless tubes of different sizes (1-3 mm in diameter), a special rig is designed to
control the position of the TIG electrode tip. The effect of the electrode tip position and welding current
on the surface roughness of the tube around the welded end is established; their influence on the
interaction of the thermocouples and liquid is discussed with the aids of computational fluid dynamic
simulations with different contact angles (wetting coefficients).

2. Testing Setup and Data Analysis

(a) (b)
Figure 2. (a) setup of the welding tests (b) Welded end of stainless steel tubes.
Figure 2 shows the welding setup (a) and some welded samples of stainless steel tubes with different
sized (b). The welding apparatus is able to control the height and position of the TIG electrode through
a specifically designed frame. The TIG welding torch is fixed with a height adjustable block unit. A
tungsten electrode is used and Argon gas flows through the torch; the TIG Welding machine has a
Rectifier (made by FRONIUS), which covers a current range 10-180 A and voltage up to 230V,

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AMRPT2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 611 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/611/1/012014

depending on the current setting that has been selected. Ar gas is supplied to the welding torch with a
pre-defined flowrate. In addition, stable arc created for welding is maintained with an inert atmosphere.
Figure 3 shows the ContourGT-K 3D optical microscope used to measure surface roughness of the
welded tip for all specimens. The test was performed on the external wall of the tubes after the tip was
closed through TIG welding as illustrated by the box (dashed lines in Figure 2(b)). This is the region in
contact with the mediums being measured and the surface roughness directly influence the colour and
the solid-liquid or solid-gas wetting behaviours. Roughness plays an important role in determining how
a real object will interact with its environment. For example, when a sheathed thermocouple is being
used to measure the temperature of a liquid, there will be residual liquid adhered onto the surface of the
probe. This can result in inaccurate temperature recordings, a difficult cleaning process (when dealing
with hazardous liquid) and a shorter life time span of the probe due to corrosion. Therefore, it can be
understood that high surface roughness value is very undesirable. During TIG welding procedures,
surface roughness is strongly influenced by complex interaction between welding parameters, such as
the current, height of the torch, shielding gas flowrate and welding speed. A design of experiments (DOE)
has been used to produce samples under different parameters including Electrode Workpiece distance
(mm), Argon Gas Flowrate (l/min), Voltage (V) and Current (A).

Figure 3. Brukker ContourGT-K surface texture system used to measure the surface roughness.

3. Results and Analysis

Figure 4 illustrates some typical 3D scans of the welded end of the tubes for the samples prepared using
different welding heights (i.e. position of the electrode tip) and current. Samples produced by welding
with a welding distance of 1mm suffered burning due to close distance of the welding operation.
Detailed analysis of the cross section (a typical example is shown in Figure 4(b)) demonstrated a clear
effects of the welding parameters changes, i.e. welding current and welding tip height on the surface
features. The work shows that the surface texture system is able to highlight the welding penetration
changes with the adjustment of the welding tip height and current settings as comparatively shown in
Figure (a) and Figure (c). In addition, the surface roughness tests can help identify the oxide zone on the
tube as illustrated in Figure (d). These oxide layer may cause uneven corrosion to the stainless steel tube
surface. Surface roughness of the weld zone for all the tested samples were measured and the average
surface roughness value was calculated from three readings. Some typical data is shown in Figure 5,
roughness value found in the range of 1.1 to 3.5 micron is quite low for a welded specimen. Therefore
it can be said that using automated system is possible to produce good surface quality of welding which
may not require any further finishing operation. These roughness values also show that the applied
current has no consistent effect on the surface roughness value but the position of the electrode tip could
be a crucial issue.

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AMRPT2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 611 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/611/1/012014

(a) Electrode tip height = 2mm, Current = (b) Enlarged view of the (a) showing the cross
30AMPs sectional view of the surface

(c) Electrode tip height = 2mm, Current = (d) Typical example showing the defects on the
50AMPs surface identified through Surface Roughness
Scan.
Figure 4. Typical example of surface roughness characterisation of the welded tubes. (a) Welding tip
height=2mm, Current =30AMPs; (b) enlarged 3D sectional view of the surface roughness, (c) welding
current=50AMP; (d) Surface roughness and surface defects when the electrode is close to the end of
the tube.
4
3.5
Average Surface Roughness (um)

3
2.5
2
1.5
1 Welding Height=1mm

0.5 Welding Height=2mm
Welding Height=3mm
0
10 20 30 40 50
Current (A)

Figure 5. Average surface roughness of the samples with different welding current and welding tip
height.

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AMRPT2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 611 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/611/1/012014

As an extension of this project, a computation fluid dynamics model has been developed to study the
link between surface roughness and surface wetting (represented by the contact angle between the solid
surface and the liquid) on the tip of the thermocouple sensor [10]. A wetting process is the ability of the
solid surface to maintain contact with the liquid. This phenomena often occurs due to intermolecular
interactions when the liquid and solid are brought together. The hypothesis is that surface roughness can
affect the adhesive forces between the solid and the liquid, which controls the wetting process and
dripping residuals, which is relevant to the thermocouples performances when measuring temperature
of a liquid. Less residual will be a better option, in particular when dealing with acidic liquid for safe
operation or a liquid system for which maintaining the composition balance is critical (e.g.
pharmaceutical system). Establishing a quantitative link directly between surface roughness to wetting
is challenging, one approach is to use numeric modelling to map the effective zones (regime of contact
angles/wetting coefficients) within which the adhesion between the solid surface and a liquid is less
severe.

Liquid Phase
Liquid Residual

(a) Computational Fluid (b) Dripping of liquid from the (c) Dripping of liquid from the
Dynamic (CFD) model. tip of tube closure, at contact tip of tube closure, at contact
angle of 0 (High surface angle of 60 (High surface
roughness) roughness)
Figure 6. Example numerical model developed to assess the effect of contact angle (wetting
coefficients) on the residual of liquid on the tube when a tube is pulled from a liquid. The contact
angle is affected by the surface roughness.
Two typical CFD examples are shown in Figure 6, which illustrate the dripping of a liquid from the
thermocouple stainless steel tube when it is taken out of the liquid. This model is able to assess the effect
of contact angle and wetting characteristics on the liquid-stainless steel tube interaction. Initial
simulation results showed that when the contact angle is low (representing strong wetting) fully wetting
is achieved and a residual on both sides of the tip can be observed (Figure 6(b)). This can cause the
probe to produce inaccurate temperature readings due to the wetting affect and difficult to clean. On the
other hand, at a contact angle of 60, a mall volume of residual liquid is adhered to the end of the tube.
Future works will focus on developing systematic studies on the contact angle of flat and curved face
with different surface roughness.

4. Conclusions
This paper reported a systematic work of controlled TIG welding tests and analysis on welding closure
of stainless tubes with different sizes, the quality of the weld and surface roughness is investigated and
the key factors controlling the welding process is established. Surface roughness of welded tube is found
to change with the distance from the welding zone, which highlight the influence of the thermal process
or potential phase changes. The result shows that microstructure burns formed in some welding
conditions, which is quantitatively identifiable through surface roughness testing, this may help to
manage the potential welding defects on the corrosion resistance of the material. The data shows that
the surface roughness varies between 1-3.5 microns and oxidation significantly reduce the smoothness
of the surface. CFD data shows that wetting coefficient could significantly influence the dripping mode
of the liquid from the tube. Future work will combine the experimental results with modelling and

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AMRPT2019 IOP Publishing
IOP Conf. Series: Materials Science and Engineering 611 (2019) 012014 doi:10.1088/1757-899X/611/1/012014

detailed materials characterisation to develop a welding map for guiding the optimisation of the welding
process directly linking surface roughness to the wetting behaviour of the welded zones.

Acknowledgments
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement “No 689857” and “No 823786”.

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