Development of Automatic Movement Setup for Gas Metal Arc Welding and Investigation on Welding Aspects of AISI 304 and AISI 316

Abstract

Gas Metal Arc Welding process is leading in the development in arc welding process which is higher productivity and good in quality. An automatic GMAW setup is designed and fabricated to improve the weld quality. The setup is capable of producing straight, neat, uniform width and deposition rate with low spatters.The present study has been done to study the effect of different input parameters on the desired responses in the gas metal arc welding process. The welding aspects like microhardness, impact strength, crystal structure and microstructure of stainless steel (AISI 304 and AISI 316) during GMAW using the three levels of welding current, voltage, gas flow rate and travelling speed to optimize the process following Taguchi experimental design. An automatic gas metal arc welding setup was fabricated to control the speed of welding gun at different levels. The effect of various input parameters on output responses have been analyzed using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Surface composition was determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and Scanning Electron Microscopy was carried out to study the microstructural properties. Impact test results for AISI 304 stain steel shows that toughness at room temperature mainly depends on the value of welding speed. Toughness is increases with the increase of voltage value up to the highest voltage for AISI 316 stainless steel. Welding speed is the most important parameter in effecting the value of microhardness for AISI 316 stainless steel.