Electric Arc Welding

V. N. PRASAD
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL
ENGINEERING
RGUKT, R K V
Electric Arc Welding - Introduction

• The electric-arc welding process makes use of the heat produced

by the electric arc to fusion weld-metallic pieces.
• This is one of the most widely used welding process, mainly
because of the ease of use and high production rates that can be
achieved economically.

• Approximately, 50% of the

energy is liberated in the
form of heat.
 Principle of Arc
• An arc is generated between two conductors of electricity, cathode
and anode, when they are touched to establish the flow of current
and then separated by a small distance.
• An arc is a sustained electric discharge through the ionised gas
column called plasma between the two electrodes.

• About 65 to 75% of the total

heat is liberated at the anode
by the striking electrons.

• A temperature of the order of

6000°C is generated at the
anode.
• In order to produce the arc, the potential difference between the
two electrodes (voltage) should be sufficient to allow them to
move across the air gap.
• The larger air gap requires higher potential differences.
• If the air gap becomes too large for the voltage, the arc may be
extinguished.
• The extra energy spent crossing the air gap is liberated as heat.
 Arc Welding Equipment
The main requirement in an arc-welding set-up is the source of
electric power.
They are essentially of two types:
a) Alternating Current (AC) Machines
(i) Transformer
(ii) Motor or engine-driven alternator
b) Direct Current (DC) Machines
(i) Transformer with dc rectifier
(ii) Motor or engine-driven generator
The welding machines can also be divided into two types, based on
the characteristics.
1. The constant-current welding machines or Droop-
curve machines or simply droopers:
which vary the welding voltage to account for the change in the
arc gap, thus maintaining the arc current.
• As a result of this, the characteristics of the machine (a plot
between output volts and output amperes) are a drooping one, as
shown in Fig.

• In Fig. (a) , is shown the setting of

open-circuit voltage (no welding) at
80 volts whereas in
• Fig.(b) for the same machine, open-
circuit voltage is set at 50 volts.
• It can be seen that for a large change in output voltage, the
corresponding change in current is so small that the quality of the
weld can be maintained.
• This is very essential for manual arc-welding processes, since the
maintenance of constant arc is nearly impossible by a human
welder.
2. The constant-voltage welding machines
• In contrast to the above, the constant-
voltage welding machines have a more flat
characteristic curve, as shown in Fig.
• The slope of the curve is so flat that any
small change in voltage makes for an
extremely large change in the output
currents. These systems are generally
preferred in the automatic machines since
they become self-corrective.
• For example when the electrode comes a
bit closer to the work, the arc voltage
drops raising the output current to a very
high value. This current instantly melts the
electrode and thus maintains the arc gap.
• Though dc arc welding is more expensive than ac welding, it is
generally preferred because of the control of heat input offered by
it.
• About 70% of the heat is liberated near the anode in dc arc
welding.
• Straight Polarity or DCEN (Direct
Current Electrode Negative).

• Used for thicker sheets or for the

work materials which have higher
thermal conductivity such as
aluminium and copper.
• The workpiece can be made as anode,
liberating large heat near it.
• This gives rise to a higher penetration
as shown in Fig.(a) .
• reversed polarity or DCEP (Direct
Current Electrode Positive).
• For thinner materials, where less heat
is required in the weld zone, the
polarity could be reversed by making
the workpiece as negative.
• In reversed polarity, the penetration is
small,
AC arc welding set up using the
transformer

Figure: Sectional view of representation of the arc-welding

Specifications of Welding machine
The arc-welding machines are normally specified by means of
1. maximum rated open-circuit voltage,
2. rated current in amperes,
3. and duty cycle.

4. The maximum rated, open-circuit voltage:

• It is the voltage between the output terminals when no
welding is being done, is normally fixed at about 80 V.
• This is the maximum and normally, a voltage of the order
of 40 to 50 V should be enough for starting an arc, whereas
for continuous welding 20 to 30 V is sufficient.
• The minimum welding load voltage Vm can be calculated
as
• Vm = 20 + 0.04 I
where I is the load current in amperes.
2. The rated current:
• It specifies the maximum current in amperes (A) that a welding
machine is capable of supplying at a given voltage.
• The preferred current ratings as per BIS:1851–1966, are 150, 200,
300, 400, 500, 600 and 900 A.

3. The duty cycle:

defined by American Welding Society (AWS)
• Duty cycle is “The percentage of time in a 10-minute period that a
welding machine can be used at its rated output without overloading”.
• Normally, a 60% duty cycle is suggested.
• The Indian standard specifies 5 min as the cycle and hence, for every 5
min of welding transformer operation, 3 min is for welding and 2 min
is for no-load operation.
• But continuous, automatic welding machines may require the welding
machine to operate at 100% duty cycle. Sometimes the suggested duty
cycle can be lowered for high ambient temperatures, insufficient
cooling air quality and low-line voltage.
•• The actual duty cycle can be calculated as follows:

• Required duty cycle,

where T = Rated duty cycle,
I = Rated current at the rated duty cycle, and
Ia = Maximum current at the rated duty cycle.
 Electrodes
The electrodes used for providing
heat input in arc welding are of two
types,
1. The consumable and
2. The non-consumable electrodes.

• When consumable electrodes are

used, the welding process is called
metal-arc-welding.
• when non-consumable electrodes
are used they are termed by the
electrode material used, for
example, carbon-arc-welding,
Tungsten arc welding etc…
 Coatings on Electrodes
• A consumable electrode, used in welding, can be either bare or
coated.
• The coated electrode also called stick electrode, is used for the
manual-arc-welding process.
• The coatings on the electrodes serve a number of purposes which
are detailed as follows with reference to Fig.

1. The coatings give off inert gases

such as carbon dioxide under the
arc heat, which shields the
molten metal pool and protects it
from the atmospheric oxygen,
hydrogen, and nitrogen pick-up,
thus reducing contamination of
the weld metal.
 Coatings on Electrodes
2. The coatings provide flux to the molten metal pool, which mixed with
the oxides and other impurities present in the puddle, forms a slag.
3. Special alloying elements can be introduced through these coatings to
improve the strength and physical properties of the weld metal.
4. The coatings are normally insulators of electricity and thus, permit the
electrode to be used in narrow grooves, and other difficult locations
without causing any short circuiting problems.
5. It is possible to include iron powder in the coating in large amounts so
that the electrode can be kept in contact with the workpiece, which may
be necessary for welding in overhead and other positions. Also, this
increases the penetration and metal-deposition rate.

6. The coatings also contain materials,

which can control the slag to be viscous or
fluid. Viscous slag would be useful for
making welds in vertical position to cover
the metal puddle for a longer time.
• The stick electrodes are normally available in diameters 3.2, 4, 5,
6, 8 and 9 mm and the length is 350 or 450 mm.
• One of the major concerns with the coated electrodes is the
moisture pick up by the coating.
Manual Metal Arc Welding
 Manual Metal Arc Welding
• The manual metal arc welding also called the Shielded Metal Arc
Welding (SMAW) is the most extensively used manual welding
process, which is done with stick (coated) electrodes.
• Highly versatile and can be used extensively, for both simple as well as
sophisticated jobs.
• Equipment is least expensive than most of the arc-welding processes.
• Welds by this process can be made in any position.

• Job of any thickness can be welded.

• But very small thicknesses, below 3 mm, may

give rise to difficulty in welding because of
their lack of rigidity.
• Similarly, very large thicknesses, above 20
mm, may take a long time for filling up the
joint groove.
 Manual Metal Arc Welding
• Power source: Either AC or DC.
• Range of the current usage may vary from 50 to 500 A
• Voltages from 20 to 40 V.
• The main disadvantage is the slow speed.
• The weld-metal deposition rates may be in the range of 1 to 8 kg/hr in
the flat position.
 Selection of Electrodes for SMAW
The electrodes for the welding operation should be selected properly,
depending on the requirements of the welding.
The main points to be considered are
1. The composition of the base metal, which determines the electrode
composition
2. The tensile strength of the required joint
3. The thickness of the base metal. For thinner metals the current
setting should be lower
4. The required metal-deposition rate
5. The type of arc welding equipment used; dc arc welding equipment
would be preferable for overhead welding
6. The weld position: flat, horizontal, vertical or overhead: a flat
position can accommodate a larger size electrode
• Also, to increase metal-deposition rate, coatings with iron powder can
be used.
• In the case of vertical and overhead positions, it is necessary that the
weld pool be smaller for better control. This would necessitate a small
size electrode.
 Coding of Electrodes
• The covered electrodes to be used for manual metal arc welding are
standardized for various base materials.
• The coding are used for marking the electrodes as per the relevant
Indian Standards.
• For example, BIS: 815-1966 describes the coding of the electrodes to be
used for mild steel and low alloy high tensile steel.
• The electrodes are marked with a 6-digit numeral associated by a prefix
and a suffix.
Figure: Coated electrode designation for manual metal arc welding
of mild steel using coated electrodes as per BIS: 815-1966
 Electrode sizes
• The size of the electrode to be chosen is based on the thickness of the
plate to be welded and the weld position.
• The root electrode size is to be used for the root pass in the case of a
multipass welding.

Table. Electrode sizes based on the metal thickness to be welded.

Parameters of the welding machine
• After selecting the electrode size, the choice is to be made of the
parameters of the welding machine to be set.
• Following table gives the current and voltage settings to be used for a
typical electrode E603413.

• Table Some of the weld parameters to be used with the electrode E603413
 Edge Preparation in SMAW
• The type of edge preparation required for butt welds in manual metal
arc welding process is presented in the following Figure, with the
necessary dimensional details.

Figure: Butt-edge weld preparation details for manual metal arc welding
Method of striking an arc

Figure: Method of striking an arc

 Arc extinguishing
• At the end of the welding, if the arc is abruptly extinguished, the
arc crater would not be filled and hence, a depression would be
left in the joint.
• Therefore, the arc has to be slowly extinguished by the gradual
decrease of the welding current, which ensures a complete filling
of the arc crater.
• In multipass welding, as shown in Figure , the brittle slag coating
present on the bead after the root pass is made is chipped off and then
the area is cleaned with a wire brush, before the second pass is
commenced.
• Same procedure is followed for all the subsequent passes.

Figure: A typical multipass bead formed by manual metal arc welding

 Position of the Welding
• Welding in flat (downhand) position is relatively easy, but in
horizontal position, the welding becomes somewhat difficult because
the molten metal cannot be held in position against gravity.
• Generally, a short arc length is maintained so that filler metal will be
properly deposited in the groove.

Figure: The position of electrode Fig. Undercut that is likely in

for welding in horizontal position horizontal welding
• There are two positions in the vertical, the vertically upward and
vertically downward directions.
• The vertically upward direction is most preferred because of the
strong weld obtained.
• In the downward welding, the slag is likely to move down due to
the gravity and mix with the weld metal.

Fig. Positioning of electrode for welding in vertical upward position

• The overhead welding is very similar to the flat
position. Because of the greater possibility of the
weld-metal falling, the electrode sizes used are
small with a very short arc length.
 Arc Blow
• An AC arc once started is more stable, but it is not so with the DC arc.
• The predominant problem faced with the dc arc is the “arc blow”, the
deflection of the arc by means of the magnetic fields setup due to the
flow of the welding current.
• All electrical conductors are surrounded by magnetic flux lines around
them.
• These magnetic flux lines move easily in metal but not in air.
• The result of an arc blow is an excessive spatter (throwing out the
tiny droplets of weld metal out of the joint on to the base metal
which appear as tiny dots on the metal plates), as also incomplete
fusion and reduced welding speed.

• When a large slag is produced, the arc blow melts the slag causing
still more excessive spatter.

Fig. Arc blow in dc arc welding

 Methods to reduce Arc blow
• Some of the methods that are used to reduce the severity of the arc
blow problem are to
1. change to AC welding, because of the continuous change in the
polarity, the effect of magnetic field is nullified.
2. Reduce the current used so that the strength of the magnetic field
gets reduced,
3. Use a short arc length so that the filler metal would not be deflected
but carried easily to the arc crater,
4. Put steel blocks near the end of the plate in contact with the base
metal so that the magnetic flux lines would flow through them and
reduce the arc blow, and
5. Place more than one ground lead from the base metal (preferably
one each from the ends of the base metal plate as in Figure).
Fig. The appearance of magnetic field in dc arc welding as affected
by grounding
Inert – Gas Shielded Arc Welding
 Inert – Gas Shielded Arc Welding
• The complete exclusion of oxygen and other gases is very essential to
obtain a joint, which is as strong as the base metal and at the same
time, the joint is as homogeneous as possible.
• In manual metal arc welding, the use of stick electrodes does this job
to some extent but not fully.

• In inert-gas shielded arc-

welding processes, a high-
pressure inert gas flowing
around the electrode while
welding, would physically
displace all the atmospheric
gases around the weld
metal to fully protect it.
• The shielding gases most commonly used are argon, helium,
carbon dioxide and mixtures of them.
• Argon and helium are completely inert and therefore they provide
a complete inert atmosphere around the puddle, when used at
sufficient pressure. But when these gases are used, they should be
of high purity (99.95% purity).
• Both argon and helium can be used with ac as well
as dc welding power sources.
• However, carbon dioxide is normally used with only
dc with electrode positive.
Tungsten Inert Gas Welding (TIG)
 Tungsten Inert Gas Welding (TIG)
• Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding or Gas Tungsten Arc
welding (GTAW) is an inert-gas-shielded arc-welding
process using non-consumable electrode.
• The electrodes may also contain 1 to 2% thoria (thorium
oxide) mixed along with the core tungsten or tungsten
with 0.15 to 0.40% zirconia (zirconium oxide).
• The pure tungsten electrodes are less expensive but will
carry less current.
• The thoriated tungsten electrodes carry high currents and
are more desirable because they can strike and maintain
a stable arc with relative ease.
• The zirconia added tungsten electrodes are better than
pure tungsten but inferior to thoriated tungsten
electrodes.
Fig. A typical tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding set-up
 • The TIG welding process can be used for the joining of a number of
materials,
• The most common ones are aluminium, magnesium and stainless
steel.
• The typical combination of TIG set ups to be used with these and
other metals are presented in Table 9.10 .

Table: The metals that can be commonly welded by TIG welding and
their choice of set-ups.
 Power Sources
• The power sources used are always the
constant current type.
• Both direct current (dc) and alternating
current (ac) power supplies can be used for
TIG welding.
 Electrodes for TIG welding
• The tungsten electrodes used for welding should be clean and
completely free from any kind of contamination such as molten filler
metal.
• the electrode may get consumed quickly if it is allowed to get oxidised,
since tungsten oxide has a lower melting temperature.
• The electrode tip should be prepared for proper weld penetration. The
typical shapes that can be used are shown in Fig.
 Filler metal for TIG
• Sometimes filler metals may have to be used depending on the base metal.
• The filler metal for TIG (GTAW) welding is generally a bare wire.
• The size of the filler metal depends on the base-metal thickness.
• The sizes of the filler rods are shown in Table, for various metal
thicknesses for aluminium welding.

Table. TIG welding of aluminium using ac with high-frequency welding

machine and argon gas with tungsten electrodes
Gas-Metal Arc Welding (GMAW)
 Gas-Metal Arc Welding (GMAW)
• Metal Inert Gas (MIG) arc welding, more appropriately called as Gas-
Metal Arc Welding (GMAW), utilises a consumable electrode and
hence, the term ‘metal’ appears in the title.

• Though Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW or TIG) can be used to

weld all types of metals, it is more suitable for thin sheets.

• When thicker sheets are to

be welded, the filler metal
requirement makes GTAW
difficult to use. In this
situation, the GMAW comes
handy.
• The power supplies are always of the constant-voltage type only.
• The current from the welding machine is changed by the rate of feeding
of the electrode wire.
• Normally, dc arc-welding machines are used for GMAW with electrode
positive (DCEP).
• The DCEP increases the metal-deposition rate and also provides for a
stable arc and smooth electrode metal transfer.

Fig. 9.39 Schematic of a gas-metal arc welding set-up

 Metal Transfer
In the GMAW process, the filler metal is transferred from the
electrode to the joint.
Depending on the current and voltage used for a given electrode,
the metal transfer is done in different ways. They are

1. short circuit or dip transfer,

2. globular transfer,
3. spray transfer,
4. pulsed-spray transfer, and
5. rotating-spray transfer.
• Table. Deposition rates with different types of metal
transfers.
• The short-circuit metal transfer occurs with relatively low current
settings of the order of 75 to 175 A for an electrode diameter of 0.9 mm.

Fig. The manner in which metal gets transferred from electrode

during short circuit or dip transfer in GMAW
 Shielding Gases
• The gases that can be used for GMAW are argon,
helium, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide and a
mixture of the above gases in various proportions.

• Each of these has their effect on the formation of the

bead and the penetration.
 Electrodes
• The electrode wire comes generally in the form of coils.
• Various wire compositions are available depending on the
base-metal composition.
• Wires of very small diameter are more expensive.
• The normal sizes may be of the order of 0.5 to 3.2 mm.
Flux-cored Arc
Welding
Flux-cored Arc Welding
• The Flux-Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) process is a modification of
the GMAW, where the solid electrode wire is replaced by a tubular
electrode containing flux at the centre of the electrode throughout
its length.
• First introduced in 1960, this process has been finding wide usage
and replacing other arc-welding processes.
• Because of the availability of flux in the welding zone, the weld
metal of any required composition can be closely controlled as
well as obtain a smooth weld bead.
• FCAW is normally used for the welding of structural steels and
alloy steels, though is not limited to them.
• The equipment used for flux cored arc welding is similar to that
used for GMAW.
• Since the electrode is not a solid wire, the feeding units should be
properly designed so as not to put excess pressure on the electrode
resulting in its flattening.
Submerged Arc Welding (SAW)
 Submerged Arc Welding (SAW)
• The submerged arc welding (SAW) is used for doing faster welding
jobs.
• It is possible to use larger welding electrodes (12 mm) as well as very
high currents (4000 A) so that very high metal-deposition rates of the
order of 20 kg/h or more can be achieved with this process.
• Also, very high welding speeds (5 m/min) are possible in SAW.
• Some submerged arc-welding machines are able to weld plates of
thickness as high as 75 mm in butt joints in a single pass.
• Though submerged arc welding can be used even for very small
thicknesses, of the order of 1 mm, it is more economical for larger
welds only.
• The arc is produced while the consumable electrode wire which is
continuously fed into the weld zone as in GMAW.
• The welding zone is completely covered by means of a large amount of
granulated flux, which is delivered ahead of the welding electrode by
means of a welding flux feed tube.
• The arc occurring between the electrode and the workpiece is completely
submerged under the flux and not visible from outside.
• A part of the flux melts and forms the slag, which covers the weld metal.
• The unused flux is collected and reused.
• Since the arc is completely submerged in the flux, there is no
spatter of the molten metal.
• Since this process uses loose granulated flux to cover the joint, it
is not possible to carry out in any position other than the flat or
down hand position.
• The out of position welds are difficult to carry, also because of the
large metal pools that are generated in the SAW process.
• The electrode wires normally used are of sizes 1.6, 2, 2.5, 3.15, 4,
5, 6.3, and 8mm.
RESISTANCE WELDING
 RESISTANCE WELDING
• The welding processes covered so far, are fusion welding processes
where only heat is applied in the joint.
• In contrast, resistance welding process is a fusion welding process
where both heat and pressure are applied on the joint but no filler
metal or flux is added.
• The heat necessary for the melting of the joint is obtained by the
heating effect of the electrical resistance of the joint and hence, the
name resistance welding.
 Principle
•
The resistance of the joint R is a complex factor to know because it
is composed of
a) The resistance of the electrodes,
b) The contact resistance between the electrode and the
workpiece,
c) The contact resistance between the two workpiece plates,
and
d) The resistance of the workpiece plates.