September 2020 Coverpms.

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SEPTEMBER 2020
WELDING JOURNAL • VOLUME 99 NUMBER 9 • SEPTEMBER 2020

Welding Gases and

Consumables
Laser Welding

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN WELDING SOCIETY TO ADVANCE THE SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND APPLICATION OF WELDING
AND ALLIED JOINING AND CUTTING PROCESSES WORLDWIDE, INCLUDING BRAZING, SOLDERING, AND THERMAL SPRAYING
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September 2020 • Volume 99 • Number 9 CONTENTS

FEATURES
22 Take a Plunge into Underwater Welding
and Cutting 22
Operational setup, diving, welding, and
consumables are discussed — J. Hilkes and
J. Tuchtfeld

28 Understanding Shielding Gas Flow in GTAW

Using a gas lens, along with the proper gas flow
rate, can help reduce operational costs — A. Pfaller

32 Shielding Gas: Lower Your Costs by Eliminating

Inefficiencies*
A small investment in the proper gas equipment
28
can provide significant gas savings — D. Gailey

36 Adaptive Remote Laser Welding Ushers in

Innovative Manufacturing
The advent of laser triangulation seam tracking
and shape recognition imaging spurs changes in
modern joining applications — J. Woolley

WELDING RESEARCH SUPPLEMENT

239-s Deep Learning-Based Detection of 246-s Effects of Filler Wire Intervention on Gas
Penetration from Weld Pool Reflection Images Tungsten Arc: Part I — Mechanism
An innovative method is proposed to determine Part I studies the mechanism of the filler wire
weld joint penetration using machine learning on the gas tungsten arc based on an arc-sensing
techniques — C. Li et al. method of detecting probe voltages — S. Zou et al.

At the American Welding Society (AWS), we are actively following the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The welding and
fabrication industries have been determined to be an essential business, especially as it relates to repair and maintenance
of key infrastructure. The content of the September 2020 issue of the Welding Journal is intended to be accurate when pub-
lished, but we recognize that we are in a rapidly changing situation. For AWS’s official statement on COVID-19, as well as the
latest updates and frequently asked questions, please visit aws.org.

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 3

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DEPARTMENTS
6 Editorial 43 Society News
7 Press Time News 45 Tech Topics
8 News of the Industry 49 Section News
12 Stainless Q&A 51 Guide to AWS Services
14 RWMA Q&A 52 Personnel
20 Product & Print Spotlight 58 Classifieds
39 Certification Schedule 58 Advertiser Index
40 Welding Workbook

On the cover: TRUMPF’s FusionLine

enables users to add wire to their
weld joint and bridge an opening
up to 1 mm. (Source: TRUMPF
Group.)

OFFICERS WELDING JOURNAL

President Robert W. Roth Publisher/Editor Annette Alonso
RoMan Manufacturing Inc.
Editorial
Vice President W. Richard Polanin
Managing Editor Kristin Campbell aws.org
WRP Associates
Sr. Editor Cindy Weihl 8669 NW 36 St., # 130, Miami, FL 33166-6672
Vice President Dennis K. Eck Associate Editor Katie Pacheco (305) 443-9353 or (800) 443-9353
Praxair Distribution Inc. Associate Editor Alexandra Quiñones
Education Editor Roline Pascal
Special Contributor Kathy Sinnes AWS Promotes Diversity
Vice President Michael A. Krupnicki
Airgas USA Peer Review Coord. Brenda Flores
AWS values diversity, advocates equitable and inclusive
Publisher Emeritus Jeff Weber practices, and engages its members and stakeholders in
Treasurer Carey Chen establishing a culture in the welding community that
Consultant Design and Production welcomes, learns from, and celebrates differences
Managing Editor, Digital and Design Carlos Guzman among people. AWS recognizes that a commitment to
Executive Director & CEO Gary Konarska II Production Manager Zaida Chavez diversity, equity, and inclusion is essential to achieving
American Welding Society Assistant Production Manager Brenda Flores excellence for the Association, its members, and
employees.

DIRECTORS Advertising Welding Journal (ISSN 0043-2296 Print) (ISSN 2689-0445

Senior Sales Executive, Corp. Sandra Jorgensen Online) is published monthly by the American Welding Society
T. Anderson (At Large), ITW Welding North America Manager, Sales Operations Lea Owen for $120.00 per year in the United States and possessions,
$160 per year in foreign countries: $7.50 per single issue for
R. Ashelford (Dist. 13), Rock Valley College domestic AWS members and $10.00 per single issue for non-
T. Brosio (Dist. 14), Major Tool & Machine Subscriptions members and $14.00 single issue for international. Not avail-
D. E. Clark (Dist. 20), DEClark Welding Engineering PLLC Subscriptions Representative Sonia Aleman able for resale in either print or electronic form. American
D. A. Desrochers (Dist. 1), Old Colony RVTHS [email protected] Welding Society is located at 8669 NW 36 St., # 130, Miami, FL
33166-6672; telephone (305) 443-9353. Periodicals postage
D. L. Doench (At Large), Hobart Bros. Co. paid in Miami, Fla., and additional mailing offices. POSTMAS-
D. A. Flood (Past President), Consultant MARKETING ADVISORY COUNCIL TER: Send address changes to Welding Journal, 8669 NW 36
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Bleuchip International, P.O. Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2,
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make a determination on all claims submitted for missing
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T. J. Lienert (Past President), T. J. Lienert Consulting LLC D. DeCorte, RoMan Mfg. Inc. a digital copy of the edition. Publisher will NOT send any
S. Lindsey (Dist. 21), City of San Diego G. Konarska II, American Welding Society hardcopy replacement issues for any reason.
Readers of Welding Journal may make copies of articles
S. M. McDaniel (Dist. 19), Big Bend Community College D. Marquard, IBEDA Superflash Compressed for personal, archival, educational or research purposes, and
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R. Purvis (Dist. 22), Purvis Welding Inspection M. Muenzer, ORS Nasco quote from articles, provided customary acknowledgment of
W. Newell Jr., Euroweld Ltd. authors and sources is made. Starred (*) items excluded from
S. Raghunathan (At Large), Saudi Aramco copyright.
H. Record (Dist. 5), Record Tool & Die N. Schmid, Weiler Abrasives Group Copyright © 2020 by American Welding Society in both
K. Shatell (At Large), Pacific Gas & Electric Co. S. Smith, Weld-Aid Products printed and electronic formats. The Society is not responsible
M. Sherman (Dist. 10), SW&E LLC D. Wilson, Wilson and Associates for any statement made or opinion expressed herein. Data
C. Chen, Ex Officio, Consultant and information developed by the authors of specific articles
L. E. Showalter (Dist. 4), Newport News Shipbuilding are for informational purposes only and are not intended for
M. M. Skiles (Dist. 9), Consultant S. Fyffe, Ex Officio, Astaras Inc. use without independent, substantiating investigation on the
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R. H. Stahura (Dist. 6), ESAB Welding & Cutting Products T. Lienert, Ex Officio, Consultant
P. I. Temple (Dist. 11), Welding Consultant S. Moran, Ex Officio, American Hydro Corp.
H. W. Thompson (Dist. 2), Underwriters Laboratories Inc. R. Polanin, Ex Officio, WRP Associates
J. Thompson (Dist. 8), Wallace State Community College R. Roth, Ex Officio, RoMan Mfg. Inc.

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EDITORIAL

GAWDA Celebrates 75th Anniversary

This year, the Gases and Welding Distribu- • Department of Transportation record-
tors Association (GAWDA) — a network of keeping checklists to always be audit ready
more than 500 suppliers and distributors with • More than 90% of GAWDA distributors
industrial and medical gas industry involve- are family businesses and share succession
ment in the United States — marks its 75th planning opportunities and challenges
anniversary. • Read and share news in the GAWDA
As I said in our commemorative reel at Connection e-newsletters
gawda.org/75video, once this gas and welding • Geographic and revenue membership di-
business is in your blood, you don’t leave the versity across North and Central America
Abydee Butler Moore industry. Members echoed similar sentiments • The Government Affairs Committee ad-
President, GAWDA, in the same video, telling stories from the vises on regulatory issues and directs advoca-
and President/COO, past and reminiscing about memories from cy efforts
Butler Gas Products former conventions. • Hazardous materials training resources
Co. One of the things that makes GAWDA spe- • Industry Partnering Committee provides
cial is the heavy saturation of family-owned or a forum for suppliers and distributors
closely held businesses. We also reflect • Industry personal protective equipment
“It is my honor to changes in the industry from innovations to checklists
wish GAWDA a more participation from women. • Learn from more than 200 suppliers
happy 75th anniver- The next 75 years look even brighter for • Member Services Committee educates,
sary and to thank this organization. enhances, recruits, and retains membership
our members and • New employee orientation checklists
Historical Highlights • Planning Committees develop the
sister associations programs/meetings for members by members
for their continued GAWDA, based in Hollywood, Fla., exists • Regional meetings for local networking
collaboration.” to promote the safe operation and economic • The Safety Committee liaises with CGA
vitality of the gases and welding industry. and AWS and promotes safe practices
Founded in 1945 as the National Welding • Sales training workshops
Supply Association, the association was formed • Sample safety policies for drivers
to promote the value of distribution in the sup- • Scholarships program
ply chain. Industry forefathers believed that • The sliding scale for dues fairly welcomes
distributors benefited the supply chain, both all members
downstream to customers helping buyers buy • Spirit of volunteerism
and upstream to suppliers helping sellers sell. • Welding & Gases Today magazine
Throughout the years, GAWDA has built • The Women of Gases and Welding Com-
upon this inaugural mission by creating a mittee builds the network of women in the
robust network of resources for independent industry
distributors. • GAWDA’s focus on young professionals
provides young executives with educational
Additional Acknowledgments programs and networking.

In honor of its 75th birthday, here’s why the Closing the Curtain on 2020
independent distributor needs GAWDA:
• 24 h a day/7 days a week/365 days a year It is my honor to wish GAWDA a happy
access to consultants 75th anniversary and to thank our members
• Annual convention gathers more than and sister associations for their continued
800 industry leaders collaboration.
• Educational programs through the Asso- The independent distributor needs GAW-
ciation Education Alliance DA, because while we may not be able to fund
• American Welding Society (AWS)/WEM- or source these resources on our own, collec-
CO relationship supports our manufacturers tively we harvest and reap their benefits. Per-
• Access to Compressed Gas Association haps equally as important, GAWDA needs the
(CGA) training modules independent distributor.
• Build consumer safety awareness through With independent distributors, multina-
provided posters and public service announce- tional gas manufacturers, gas and welding
ment videos equipment suppliers, and technology and
• COVID-19 Risk Mitigation Roundtables service providers, GAWDA represents a sym-
• Cross-industry compensation report for biotic industry 75 years strong. WJ
benchmarking

6 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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PRESS TIME NEWS

FABTECH 2020 Canceled

FABTECH, scheduled for November 18–20 in Las Vegas,
Nev., has been canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pan-
demic. The announcement was made by event partners
SME, the Fabricators & Manufacturers Association, Interna-
tional, the American Welding Society (AWS), the Precision
Metalforming Association, and Chemical Coaters Associa-
tion International.
“FABTECH has long been a key element of AWS’s efforts
to support and advance the welding community,” said Gary
W. Konarska II, AWS executive director and CEO. “We look
forward to continuing to work with our FABTECH event
partners to identify new and enhanced ways – both online This screenshot from the 2020 Charlie Awards trade/techni-
and physical – to connect the FABTECH community, share cal division video celebrates a Welding Journal win.
knowledge about the latest industry products and develop-
ments, and help companies move their business forward.”
Sandra Bouckley, executive director and CEO of SME, • Modern Pipe Welding Conference 2020. This virtual
added the decision to cancel the show was not taken lightly. event will take place September 29 and 30, and will cover all
“We explored every option to find a way to produce this aspects of pipe welding. The cost is $300 for members and
event in 2020. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has created an en- $400 for nonmembers. To register, visit awo.aws.org/confer-
vironment that makes it impossible to hold the event. Our ences/upcoming-conferences/pipe-welding-conference-2020/.
top concern is always the safety of our exhibitors, atten- • Aluminum Virtual Conference – Back to Basics.
dees, speakers, sponsors, and employees, along with suppli- This virtual conference will be held October 20 and 21. It is
er partners and venue staff. While we didn’t want to have to designed to provide a basic understanding of aluminum
make this decision, we have found that we have no choice.” welding and will include several topics. The cost is $300 for
Frequently asked questions and answers about the can- members and $400 for nonmembers. Go to awo.aws.org/
celed 2020 show can be found at fabtechexpo.com/covid19. conferences/upcoming-conferences/aluminum-conference/.
• AWS and Arc Junkies Podcast have launched the “Weld
Wednesday with AWS” podcast series (aws.org/podcasts).
AWS Updates: Welding Journal Wins Awards; The podcasts will serve as an avenue to inform the welding
Virtual Conferences to Focus on Modern Pipe community about important innovations and trends in the
Welding and Aluminum; Podcast Launches industry. New podcasts will be released the first Wednesday
of every month. The first episode aired on August 5.
Several new awards for the Welding Journal, two virtual “The goal of this partnership is to highlight how AWS
conferences, and a brand-new podcast series are making supports the welding community with resources including
headlines at the American Welding Society (AWS). standards, education, certification, and more,” said Cassie
• The Welding Journal earned six honors at the Florida Burrell, AWS senior vice president, strategy and member-
Magazine Association’s 2020 Charlie Awards. ship development. “We’re excited to collaborate with a pod-
Winners were announced virtually on July 24 via Face- cast that has such a diverse and strong audience.”
book. In the trade/technical division, the magazine received For the first podcast, Arc Junkies Host Jason Becker
two honors for best photography: photo essay/series, with a spoke with AWS District 5 Director Howard Record to dis-
Charlie Award (1st place) for “Centennial Photo Contest Show- cuss the advantages of AWS Section meetings and activities.
cases the ‘Art’ of Welding” (September 2019) and silver award Additional podcast topics will cover how codes and stan-
(2nd place) for “Putting the Extraordinary in Welding” (April dards are developed, the how’s and why’s of welding proce-
2019). Additionally, the publication received a Charlie Award dure specifications, and much more.
for best special theme or show issue for “Celebrating AWS’s
Centennial” (April 2019) and silver award for best writing: Wayne State University Introduces Welding
feature headlines (on three different articles). Welding Journal and Metallurgy Program
covers earned two bronze awards (3rd place), best traditional
illustration for the April 2019 cover, and best photography: Beginning in the fall of 2020, students at Wayne State Uni-
cover, for the September 2019 issue. versity, Detroit, Mich., will have the option of earning a bache-
For the best special theme or show issue win, the judge lor of science in welding and metallurgical engineering tech-
said the following: “This issue was a nice mixture of cele- nology from the College of Engineering. Wayne State’s welding
brating the rich past of the American Welding Society and and metallurgical engineering technology program is an
looking forward to the future. It was packed with detailed, upper-level two-year curriculum for students who have com-
historical information, as well as interesting profiles...” pleted their first two years in welding or a comparable pro-
In addition, during the SIIA/Association Media & Pub- gram at another institution. Within the division of engineer-
lishing 40th annual EXCEL Awards, which was also held vir- ing technology, welding and metallurgy students will take
tually, “AWS at 100 — Can a Woman Weld?” (March 2019) courses on such topics as thermodynamics, design, automa-
earned a bronze award in the magazine column category. tion and robotics, and structural analysis. WJ

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NEWS OF THE INDUSTRY

AWS Foundation Awards Up to $25,000

to Welding Programs
The American Welding Society (AWS) Foundation has
been dedicated to building the welding workforce through
the Welder Workforce Grant. Established in 2017, the grant
awards up to $25,000 to high schools, trade/technical
schools, and community colleges seeking to enhance and im-
prove their welding education programs, including making
facility improvements or investing in capital items such as
welding or metalworking equipment.
The following lists the 2020 spring grant recipients and
details how the schools hope to enhance their welding pro-
grams with the funds received.

Funds Allow Growth

With $25,000 in grant funding, Airport Community A welding student practices shielded metal arc welding in
Schools, Carleton, Mich., intend to expand students’ metal- preparation for the 3G bend test. (Photo courtesy of Airport
working capabilities by adding AWS advanced welder train- Community Schools.)
ing and fabrication classes. Alongside the addition of key
equipment, such as a larger bandsaw, CNC plasma table, and ed that we would like to offer our students the opportunity
sheet metal brake press, students will be able to complete to learn the trade of welding,” said Ryan Irwin, director of
the SENSE Level II Advanced Welder Certificate Program education, Airport Community Schools. “In 2018, our com-
and develop skills required by local industries. munity supported a bond, and we decided to use a portion
“Through multiple community contacts, surveys, and of the bond money to build a 5000-sq-ft facility . . . Now
state data, our district (Airport Community Schools) decid- that we have a great space, we are working within our limit-

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ed budget to outfit the lab with the best machines, tools,

and technology that we can.”
Chippewa Falls High School, Chippewa Falls, Wis., re-
ceived $25,000 to increase and enhance the welding equip-
ment and capacity of its laboratory space for full completion
of the AWS SENSE Level I Certificate Program. The funds
will be used to purchase 11 multiprocess machines, which al-
lows all students a welding machine during their scheduled
class period. The funds will also provide two hand plasma
cutting machines, hose reels, and cutting stations. The re-
maining money will be used for upgrades for electrical and
safety, including welding machine hookups and dedicated e-
stop buttons, suspended welding/grinding curtains, and
eight upgraded flexible welding/project stations.
“We want to establish and brand an updated welding pro-
gram that promotes school-wide enrollment, provides in-
dustry credentialing and post-secondary education credits,
and exposes and connects students to in-demand welding/
welding-related employment and careers. Establishing a
modern welding laboratory that provides relevant opportu-
nities for all students will help accomplish this goal,” said
Jonathan Hiebl, technology education instructor at Chippe-
wa Falls High School.

Chippewa Falls High School was awarded a $25,000 grant to

increase and enhance the welding equipment and capacity
of its laboratory space. (Photo courtesy of Chippewa Falls
High School.)

Paso Robles High School, Paso Robles, Calif., will use

its $25,000 fund to purchase a Miller Electric augmented arc
reality system to break into hands-on welding and then con-
tinue to build upon that initial experience with virtual weld-
ing applications that culminate in small-project construc-
tion. Community outreach and instruction in hands-on
welding skills via a mobile welding training trailer will help
bring welding directly to students in minority populations.
“Our primary focus is to increase student involvement in
the welding industry through community outreach. Specifi-
cally, we are targeting populations of students that are un-
der-represented in the welding program at Paso Robles High
School as young as fourth grade,” said Justin Pickard, agri-
culture department chairman, Paso Robles High School.
“Our goal is to bridge over stereotypes and preconceived no-
tions that might otherwise prevent these students from tak-
ing classes in welding and ultimately not pursuing the weld-
ing industry as a career.”

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Hands-on instruction using gas metal arc welding. A Paso

Robles High School student leader talks to students about
operator factors for a successful fillet weld. (Photo courtesy
of Paso Robles High School.)

To support a dual-credit partnership with the McCreary

County School District, Somerset Community College
(SCC), Somerset, Ky., will use its $24,995 grant to offer
training to the district’s students and provide a space with
accommodations and resources. The equipment purchased
through the grant will include five Miller XMT® 350 multi-
process welding machines with S-74 MPA plus wire feeders
for gas metal arc, shielded metal arc, flux cored arc, and gas
tungsten arc welding.
“With the addition of this equipment, a part-time pro-
gram can potentially become a full-time high school pro-

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There’s Still Time to Apply

The AWS Foundation is committed to securing the future

of the welding industry by positively impacting welding edu-
cation, and the Welder Workforce Grant is the latest effort
to ensure a skilled workforce is ready when industry calls.
This year, the Foundation will award up to $325,000 in
grant funding to programs across the country. The applica-
tion cycle is currently open and schools may apply for the
Welder Workforce Grant before the upcoming October 1
deadline.
To learn more, visit aws.org/workforcegrant, or contact
John Douglass, associate director of the AWS Foundation, at
[email protected]. — Roline Pascal, education editor
Karl Watson, SCC welding instructor, gives instruction to Mc-
Creary Central High School dual-credit students. (Photo cour-
tesy of Somerset Community College.)
Reassuring Signs Despite COVID-19: Trans
gram during the day and grow into an evening program for
Adriatic Pipeline Completes Offshore Section,
adult students . . . The opportunity to be able to offer multi- Sciaky’s EBAM® Continues Depositing High-
ple welding processes in McCreary County will help meet the Value Materials, and TRUMPF Hosts INTECH
needs of the local industry and make welding education
more accessible and affordable for these students and will As the pandemic continues, encouraging stories have
help the community workforce,” explained Elaine Kohrman, emerged from Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) AG, Baar,
director of grants, SCC. Switzerland; Sciaky Inc., Chicago, Ill.; and TRUMPF, Ditzin-
Ida High School, Ida, Mich., will apply its $15,000 AWS gen, Germany.
Detroit Section grant to purchase six new gas metal arc weld- • TAP has completed the 105-km-long offshore section
ing (GMAW) machines and add an additional welding booth of a pipeline across the Adriatic Sea. This milestone includes
to the lab. The purpose of this project is to improve the several deliverables, such as the offshore installation of
knowledge and skill set of the students in using GMAW and
flux cored arc welding processes. — continued on page 55

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 11

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STAINLESS Q&A
BY DAMIAN J. KOTECKI

cation of interest.
Q: American Welding Society D1.6/D1.6M:2017, Structural Welding Code — Some restraint is unavoidable in
Stainless Steel, contains two passages that are causing consternation in welded fabrication. Because the weld
our organization. In Section 4, Design of Welded Connections, Clause 4.6 metal shrinks as it cools, and that
ends with the following sentence: “Details shall promote ductile behavior, shrinkage is resisted by the surround-
minimize restraint, avoid undue concentration of welding, and afford ing cold base metal, residual stresses
ample access for depositing the weld metal.” The informative Annex G, up to the yield point can be anticipat-
Nonprequalified Stainless Steels — Guidelines for WPS Qualification and ed in and around all but very small
Use, Clause G2 Nonprequalified Austenitic Stainless Steels (6) concludes welds. These stresses produce distor-
with “Designing the weldment and the welding sequence to minimize re- tion. If distortion is not acceptable,
straint on the solidifying weld metal.” We are concerned with the phrase some applied restraint (such as strong-
“minimize restraint” in both of these sections. If we don’t restrain the backs) can be used to resist distortion,
workpieces before welding, we generally do not end up with the finished but that would appear to be counter to
weldment shape we want. Stainless steel weldments tend to distort the instruction in Clause 4.6. One way
more than carbon steel weldments of the same initial geometry. How are to minimize the use of strongbacks
we to interpret “minimize restraint” and comply with the intent of the and therefore restraint is to design for
Code? welding from two sides, whenever pos-
sible, instead of one side. In addition
A: This cannot be considered as an of- Of these, the most effective method to minimizing restraint while counter-
ficial interpretation of the American for preventing solidification cracks is ing distortion, a double-V or double-U
Welding Society (AWS) D1.6/D1.6M, the use of low heat input to produce joint preparation uses less filler metal
Structural Welding Code — Stainless convex beads and filling craters. Any than a single-V or single-U joint prepa-
Steel. Official interpretations can only time one is welding on fully austenitic ration. Therefore, a two-sided weld
be prepared by full action from the D1 stainless steels (such as 310, 320, or design, instead of a single-sided weld
Committee on Structural Welding. The 330), I would strongly recommend fol- design, minimizes restraint.
following is only my opinion as an ad- lowing those two suggestions. Considering fillet welds, Clause
visor to the D1K Subcommittee on Clause 4.6 is concerned with design 4.3.2.1 of D1.6/D1.6M:2017 states,
Stainless Steel, which is responsible for welding and uses the mandatory “Stress on the effective area of fillet
for D1.6/D1.6M. wording “Details shall . . . minimize re- welds and of welds in skewed joints
The reason for minimizing restraint straint.” There is no objective criterion shall be considered as shear stress, re-
is to minimize the likelihood of crack- that describes how that shall be done. gardless of the direction of applica-
ing. I will consider that later in this In effect, then, the engineer has to tion.” Clause 4.4.2.1 adds, “The effec-
column. again apply his or her engineering tive area shall be the effective weld
First, it is appropriate to decouple judgment, this time as to what “mini- length multiplied by the effective
the two clauses according to their ap- mize restraint” means and how that throat.” Clause 4.4.2.2 asserts, “For fil-
plication. Clause 4.6 is mandatory and can be done in the context of the fabri- let welds, the effective throat shall be
applies to all fabrication under the Code.
Clause G2 is in an informative (non-
mandatory) annex and applies specifi-
cally to fabrication of austenitic stain-
less steels that are expected to solidify
entirely as austenite (no ferrite —
steels such as 310, 320, and 330) and
are therefore somewhat susceptible to
solidification cracking.
Material provided in a nonmanda-
tory annex, such as Annex G, consists
essentially of suggestions. The engi-
neer in charge of fabrication is expect-
ed to apply his or her engineering
judgment as to whether or not a par-
ticular suggestion is appropriate for
the given fabrication. The “minimize
restraint” suggestion is just one of six
in Clause G2. The others suggest using
base metal and filler metal of low im-
purity content, using low heat input to
produce convex beads, maintaining a
low preheat and interpass tempera-
ture, using skip welding to avoid heat Fig. 1 — Fillet weld geometry (Credit: AWS A3.0M/A3.0:2020, Standard Welding Terms
and Definitions, Fig. B25 [A].)
buildup in one area, and filling craters.

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Stainless Q&A – September 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 11:03 AM Page 13

the shortest distance from the joint design purposes is T × L. The volume matching filler metals are somewhat
root to the weld face of the diagram- of filler metal deposited is ½(T/0.707)2 less resistant. Least resistant are
matic weld.” × L = 1⁄4 × T2 × L, assuming no rein- martensitic stainless steels and fully
Two small fillet welds, one on each forcement. austenitic stainless steels with match-
side of a lap or T-joint connection, can If this fillet weld is replaced by two ing weld metals. Therefore, the engi-
transmit the same amount of shear fillet welds, one on either side of the neer has more latitude when designing
load as a single fillet weld twice as web, each with an effective throat = a weldment in nominally austenitic or
large on one side of the lap joint or T/2, the effective area of the two fillet duplex stainless steel than in the other
T-joint connection, and the two small welds will be 2 × T/2 × L = T × L, same types of stainless steels. If the weld-
fillet welds will use less filler metal as the single larger fillet weld. But the ment does not experience cracking, I
than the larger single fillet weld. This volume of filler metal deposited to would say the design has sufficiently
is because the shear-load-carrying ca- produce the two fillet welds is minimized restraint. WJ
pacity of a fillet weld is proportional to 2 × ½[(T/2)/0.707]2 × L = 1⁄8 × T2 × L,
the throat dimension, but the volume which is one half as much as required
of the weld metal is proportional to by the single larger fillet weld.
the square of the throat dimension — The resistance to cracking under
Fig. 1. Further, the two small fillet restraint conditions depends upon the
welds counter distortion more than type of base metal and weld metal. DAMIAN J. KOTECKI is president, Damian
the single larger fillet weld, and they Nominally austenitic stainless steel Kotecki Welding Consultants, Inc. He is a
past treasurer of the IIW and a member of
distribute the load more evenly. The base metals and their matching filler the AWS A5D Subcommittee on Stainless
use of two fillet welds, instead of one metals (such as 304L, 308L, 309L Steel Filler Metals, D1K Subcommittee on
larger fillet weld, is a design approach 316L, and 347), which solidify as pri- Stainless Steel Structural Welding, and
that minimizes restraint. mary ferrite, are most resistant to WRC Subcommittee on Welding Stainless
Steels and Nickel-Base Alloys. He is a
As seen in Fig. 1, the effective cracking. They can generally be welded past chair of the A5 Committee on Filler
throat equals 0.707 × (leg length), and under conditions of severe restraint Metals and Allied Materials and served as
the effective area equals the effective without likelihood of cracking. Almost AWS president (2005–2006). Questions
throat times the effective length of the as resistant are duplex ferritic- may be sent to Damian J. Kotecki c/o
fillet weld. Suppose, for example, that austenitic stainless steels and their ap- Welding Journal, 8669 NW 36 St., # 130,
Miami, FL 33166-6672, or via email at
the leg length is T and the effective proximately matching filler metals. [email protected].
length is L, then the effective area for Ferritic stainless steels and their

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 13

RWMA QA Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/10/20 4:15 PM Page 14

RWMA Q&A
BY ALLEN M. AGIN

ment to the supplier or end user. A

Q: I weld nuts to hot-stamped Many conventional metals are
parts and am having difficulty stamped and welded just as they come
getting consistent results. This in from the mill, with no additional
includes parts where the nuts treatment. Mill-processed steel is mal-
appear welded to the part, but leable and can be shaped using con-
sometimes pop off in transit to ventional stamping presses and
our customer. We also get incon- processes. Hot-stamped boron steel is
sistent push-out test results. not malleable and requires in-plant
How come? I have asked this processing to stamp it.
question many times and have In-plant processing is done at an Fig. 1 — A, B — Showing color
gotten many different answers. variations.

B
A: This is a great question. It also rais-
es additional questions and challenges
to be considered when making consis-
tently good fastener welds on stamp-
ings with an aluminum silicate (AlSi)
coating.
First, we should touch on two dif-
ferent types of steel processing: mill
processing and in-plant processing.
Understanding these are different
processes is the key to some of the
major reasons for inconsistent weld
results.
Mill processing is the processing
done at the steel mill, prior to ship-

14 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

RWMA QA Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:51 PM Page 15

changes the metallurgical composition, A

A
multiplying the hardness from 50 kilo-
pounds per square inch (ksi) to around
200 ksi. This new material develops an
AlSi coating in the process. Welding
fasteners to this material is much more
difficult than to conventional steels.
B Think of it like pressing a ripe banana
into tempered glass.

Why are my stampings different

colors? B

At first glance, this may seem like an

Fig. 2 — A — Thin surface microstruc-
ture; B — thick surface microstructure. unusual question until you look in your
tote bin. Figure 1 shows an obvious dif-
ference in surface color (AlSi coating).
end-user plant, or sometimes at a sup- This color inconsistency exists due to
plier plant, where they have furnaces the variability of in-plant processing
and stamping presses to form stamp- with normal everyday work schedules
ings after they come out of the oven. and adjustments. The color difference
Hot-stamped or press-hardened mate- is caused by changes in the coating
rials must be formed using in-plant thickness due to deviations in line
processing. During in-plant processing, speed, furnace temperature, or die cool- Fig. 3 — A — Weld measurements;
the metal blanks are heated beyond ing from the ideal process parameters. B — graphed results.
900°C prior to being formed in a press
with water-cooled dies. The blanks are Does the color affect weldability? what you get for production is generally
heated to increase the ductility of the consistent and the same color. However,
steel, reducing springback during the Absolutely! Normally the steel used during in-plant processing, color varia-
stamping process. In-plant processing in production is processed at a mill, and tions can occur, indicating a change in

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 15

RWMA QA Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:52 PM Page 16

the thickness of the AlSi layers (see an

example of the change in microstruc-
ture in Fig. 2). This changes the resistiv-
ity of the surface, which directly affects
weld quality and repeatability.

What can I do to get consistent

weld results?

The “best” textbook answer when

using in-plant processing is to make
sure there is no deviation from the rec-
ommended parameters of time, tem-
perature, and die cooling for the
stamping blanks. Even a slight change
in the process can create a problem
due to the AlSi coating.
The best real-world answer, howev-
er, is that holding a process like this to
exact settings only seems to occur in
Fig. 4 — Four different microstructure surface thicknesses.
laboratory conditions. Like an endan-
gered species, it is almost never found
in the real world. This brings us back factors, including the following: in- ed stampings, are capacitive discharge
to your original question. plant processing, thickness of materi- (CD) and medium-frequency direct
al, AlSi coating, projection style, current (MFDC).
What is the best way to weld nut/stud size, and weld specifications. Many years of lab testing and pro-
nuts and studs to hot-stamped With variations of any of these, you duction have identified that a combi-
materials? can get different answers from differ- nation of short weld times, high cur-
ent people. rent, high force, and fast follow up de-
This question comes up quite often. Today, the most common welding liver the greatest consistency. An ex-
The answer depends on a variety of processes, when it comes to AlSi coat- ample of these parameters for welding

16 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

RWMA QA Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:52 PM Page 17

a M6 flange nut is shown in Fig. 3. AlSi coating layers as slight process

Figure 3 shows the current output, changes occurred due to variations in
time, and displacement when welding in-house processing control.
a M6 nut onto a 2-mm ALSi-coated
material. What other factors do I need to
While a MFDC process can be ideal consider?
for the right application, it does re-
quire tight control of in-plant process- You may want to take the following
ing. A CD process allows for variations factors into account:
due to in-plant processing in real-
world conditions, as described earlier. • Primary power
Figure 4 shows several examples of
thickness differences in the multiple • Water cooling
Fig. 5 — Overheated weld showing a
large HAZ.

Fig. 6 — A — Showing almost no HAZ;

B — showing bottom side again with
almost no HAZ; C — showing nugget
pull with almost no HAZ.

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 17

RWMA QA Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:53 PM Page 18

• Floor space/footprint chiller requirements mentioned earli- On the other hand, Fig. 6 shows ex-
er, the savings in facility investment amples of the desired HAZ and excel-
• Air filtration would have been huge. lent push-out test results when using
Rework is another major cost to high currents and very short weld
• Electrode life consider. In another case, also due to times. There is no visible HAZ around
upfront cost-saving measures, two au- the projections, or around where they
• Testing tomotive suppliers found themselves pulled.
reworking lots of parts, and paying As you can see, answering your
• Rework more than they had saved on the original question is not simple. It rais-
equipment purchase. They had chosen es many additional concerns that
• Capital investment the MFDC process to weld stampings should be taken into account to create
with AlSi coatings based on equipment consistent and reliable welds.
• Weld quality price. They didn’t recognize a variety In conclusion, one of the most im-
of issues with their in-plant processing portant exercises you should consider
• Welder repurposing (some of which I’ve touched on above), is partnering with a reputable resist-
so production welding yielded incon- ance welding machine builder who has
• Life cycle cost sistent results. Both companies were the expertise, experience, and ability
forced to implement “safety” gas metal to demonstrate a variety of different
• In-plant processing arc welds (GMAW) to their fasteners, processes when welding AlSi-coated
adding more weight to the vehicle and stampings. While this demonstration
Expanding on a few of these fac- much greater production cost due to can take place in the machine builder’s
tors, let’s start with power supply. A longer processing time, as well as addi- welding lab, this demonstration
MFDC system, including the latest tional personnel, welding gas, and should use your production parts and
“fast-rise time” type of transformer, consumables. a range of their production welding
can require up to 1000 ampere (A) of There are at least several other fac- equipment. This equipment should in-
three-phase power and a 2200 A in- tors that I don’t have the space to clude both CD and MFDC welding ma-
verter. CD processes require a small mention here. It is best to discuss all chines with all necessary production
fraction of that power. For example, of these with a resistance welding ma- features. Following this process will
one manufacturer’s CD process only chine builder who has a proven track supply you with the absolute correct
requires 30 A of single-phase 480 volts record on hot-stamped materials. De- answers for your particular applica-
alternating current. Installation costs signing your process for success tion, enabling you to consistently pro-
of the primary power supply, as well as should also include doing lab welding, duce the strongest possible welds. WJ
power cost over the life cycle of the testing, and performing a Design of
capital equipment, are substantial fac- Experiment (DoE) on your stampings Acknowledgments
tors that should be considered. before making a major investment.
Supplying chilled water can also be a I am very grateful for the assistance
significant cost to consider. For exam- I’ve been hearing about the of the following people in answering
ple, MFDC processes require significant heat-affected zone (HAZ). Why your question in more depth: Bob
water cooling for the weld control and does this matter? Kollins, at Technical Sales and Solu-
transformer. A CD welding process that tions, for support with the measure-
does not require water cooling for the The HAZ is a very important, often ments and waveforms shown in Fig. 3;
control or transformer saves at least 8 critical, factor in all resistance welds. and Min Kuo, PhD, at ArcelorMittal
gal per min (30 L per min). In high- The ideal resistance weld utilizes the Global R&D, for the microstructure
duty-cycle CD applications, a small highest possible amount of heat for imaging on our parts shown in Figs. 2
chiller might be recommended to cool the shortest possible amount of time. and 4.
the tooling. There are capital cost sav- Using a process that cannot deliver
ings in buying a much smaller chiller, or weld current in the shortest amount of
not buying a chiller at all, not to men- time can end up heating an area far ALLEN M. AGIN is the Midwest regional
tion the ongoing power savings from outside the weld zone. This may cause sales manager and product manager for
CD welding at Weld Systems Integrators
not running a large chiller. a change in hardness in the base mate- Inc., Warrensville Heights, Ohio; a sustain-
Another often overlooked factor is rial, which can lead to a material fail- ing member of AWS; and an active mem-
floor space. Some capacitive storage ure in the HAZ. Figure 5 shows what ber in RWMA and WEMCO. He has been in-
banks are simply more space efficient. appears to be a good weld based on the volved in the applications, training, and
sales of resistance welding since 1968.
United States-built CD banks are typi- number of weld nuggets, but with se- Agin is also an author and co-author of ar-
cally much smaller than those sourced vere overheating leading to a weak- ticles on the welding of fasteners to hot-
overseas. Recently, a large stamping ened HAZ. In this case, the end user stamped and press-hardened steels with
company purchased CD welding ma- was using a MFDC power supply, and AlSi coatings. He has presented to the
chines based on price alone to keep experiencing much lower push-out American Institute of Steel Engineers, AWS
Sheet Metal Welding Conferences, and
the project cost down. The CD banks values than expected. Simply put, the most recently at the PMA Hot Stamping
were three to five times the size of the metallurgy changed and the part was Experience & Tech Tour. Send your com-
domestic units they didn’t purchase. weakened due to excessive heating. ments and questions to Allen Agin c/o
The overall footprint of each machine Had the HAZ been much smaller, Welding Journal, 8669 NW 36 St., #130,
Miami, FL 33166-6672, or via email at
was almost double what it could have push-out values would have been [email protected].
been. Put together with the smaller much higher.

18 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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P&P – Sept. 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 7:28 PM Page 20

PRODUCT & PRINT SPOTLIGHT Focus on Laser Welding and Consumables

Fiber Laser Facilitates Welding als. The fiber laser comes with an out-
of Thin, Conductive Metals put power of 4 kW (a 1.5-kW center
beam and a 2.5-kW ring beam that can
The HighLightTM FL4000CSM-ARM be varied and modulated). It is also
fiber laser delivers a dual-beam output equipped with a 15-m length process
to enable the welding of thin, high- fiber, making it easy to integrate in
thermal conductivity metals. The dual any production environment. The
beam, which consists of a center beam fiber laser meets welding require-
surrounded by a ring beam, offers a ments for e-mobility; energy storage;
high brightness (nominal BPP 0.6) to and general electrical interconnects
allow for a smaller spot size and mini- consisting of dissimilar materials, such
mize heating of the material. The small as copper and aluminum, and foil
spot size, coupled with the preheating stacks that require precise control.
effect from the ring beam, improves
Coherent®
weld consistency, which is a challenge
coherent.com
when welding thin, conductive materi- (800) 527-3786

SAW Wire Designed for

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The Lincore® 420HC-S metal-cored,
submerged arc welding (SAW) wire on tool steel deposits. The welding
works for applications requiring high- wire produces a high-carbon, 420-
er hardness, such as caster roll rebuild- stainless steel deposit and can be used
ing. It is used on work rolls and backup in the flat, horizontal, and circumfer-
rolls when water spray causes pitting ential welding positions. To offer

20 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

P&P – Sept. 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 7:28 PM Page 21

welders more options depending upon to increase at a compound annual materials, production shutdown, cash
weld thickness, the welding wire growth rate of 5%. The 111-page report flow constraints, and import/export),
comes in the following diameters and attributes this growth to the thermal market demand (restrictions/lockdowns,
package sizes: 3⁄32 or 1⁄8 50-lb coil, and 3⁄32 stability provided by laser welding ma- consumer sentiments), and pricing.
or 1⁄8 600-lb Speed-Feed® drum. The chines, which helps in reducing scrap
coil is light enough for one person to metal, as well as their inclusion in var- Market Research Future®
lift and install on a wire feeder reel. ious end-user applications, such as marketresearchfuture.com
The drum offers a larger, bulk package medical, jewelry, automotive, and elec- (628) 258-0071
for high-production environments. tronics. The report also forecasts that
product innovations, advances in man-
The Lincoln Electric Co. ufacturing processes, and technologi- Laser Welding System Offers
lincolnelectric.com cal improvements will continue to a Large Work Area
(888) 935-3877 drive the demand for laser welding
machines. The report concludes with The TruLaser Station 7000 3D laser
an analysis on the impact of the welding system exhibits a beam with a
Consumables Cut Down on COVID-19 pandemic on this industry. laser power of up to 4 kW and a work
Piercing Time for Thick Steel It covers the following topics: econom-
ic, supply chain (price variation of raw — continued on page 57

The QuickPierce 400-A consumables

reduce piercing time by up to 40% on
mild steel thicknesses ranging from
1.25 to 2.0 in. (30 to 50 mm). Faster
piercing time reduces cycle time, espe-
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nest. The consumables also deliver arc-
starting capabilities that increase part
life, cut longer between consumable
changes, and lower total cut cost. One
such enhancement includes more
shielding gas ports on the shield cap.
By increasing gas pressure during arc
start, pierce time is further reduced.
The additional shielding gas ports also
deflect molten metal away from the
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Report Projects Growth for

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posits that this industry is projected

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 21

AA-Hilkes Underwater Feature– Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/7/20 9:08 AM Page 22

Take a Plunge into

Underwater Welding
and Cutting
A practical view of
welding and cutting
operations for marine
and offshore
applications

BY JAN HILKES AND JÜRGEN TUCHTFELD

A
vast part of much marine and
offshore construction, such as
the supporting structures of
platforms and wind towers as well as
pipelines, manifolds, steel waterway
and harbor construction, bulkhead
panels, locks, ship hull repairs, and
more, are to a great extent done under
water. Hence, welding and cutting
activities for maintenance and repair
are bound to take place under water
as well.
Shielded metal arc welding (SMAW)
is a versatile, flexible, and practical
welding process. For this reason, it
is often used for underwater mainte-
nance and repairs. For more than
80 years, this process has been applied
for sealing leaking rivets in riveted
ship hulls. A power source and a cov-
ered electrode as the consumable is al-
most all that is required for this type
of SMAW operation. In this case, the
power source has to be adapted and
Fig. 1 — Welding for qualification test in tank with full diving gear. (Courtesy of the prepared for underwater welding to
Royal Dutch Navy — Diving Group.) meet all safety requirements. The

22 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

AA-Hilkes Underwater Feature– Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/7/20 9:09 AM Page 23

welds. To optimize the diver’s comfort,

drysuits with wool jumpsuits under-
neath are mostly used. Also, full-face
masks or helmets with communication
systems included are used — Fig. 1.
Another option is “dry” hyperbaric
welding with an underwater habitat,
referred to as a cofferdam, built around
the parts of the structure that needs to
be welded or welded upon. In this situ-
ation, the water is pressed out with air
to create a relatively “dry” environ-
ment. This means the humidity in the
habitat is relatively high but there is no
surrounding water to come in contact
with the workpiece or the welding con-
sumables and the electrical arc.
Fig. 2 — A basic electrical equipment setup for underwater welding with SMAW.
(Courtesy of Fred Neessen.) Wet Welding with
same setup can also be applicable for squeezed, the diver has to inhale
Covered Electrodes
underwater cutting operations. Since breathing air that has the same pres- Because of its versatility and flexi-
safety is the first priority, many meas- sure as the surrounding water pressure. bility in application, SMAW with
ures have to be taken into considera- The pressure inside the lungs has to be covered electrodes is often used for
tion to ensure the entire operation is equal to the external water pressure on underwater maintenance and repairs,
safe (Ref. 1). the body to prevent any damage. and is suitable for welding in all posi-
The underwater environment is al- The pressure of the breathing air is tions. A covered electrode as the con-
ways wet. It is also cold and dark, in equalized by a regulator or demand sumable and a direct current (DC)
Northern Europe, which makes work- valve with a mouthpiece, which the power source are all that is necessary
ing conditions for the welder/diver diver uses to breathe. The regulator to be operational, and this process is
less than ideal. Serious diving training connects with the first stage, which re- suitable for welding in all positions.
and welder qualification are required duces the high initial pressure, to the However, the DC power source has to
to prepare for such a demanding job. air supply in the form of gas cylinders be adapted and prepared for underwa-
During training, the basics of diving that contain compressed breathing air. ter welding to safeguard a welding op-
and working in underwater circum- eration under such conditions.
stances will be highlighted and ex- Working Under Pressure The DC power source can be a DC
plained, as will how underwater condi- generator, transformer, or inverter, as
tions affect the welding behavior of Underwater wet welding takes long as the device is manufactured and
the consumables applied. These vari- place directly in the water with “wet” approved for use in underwater welding
ables present challenges in the execu- welder/divers, who dive with com- operations. The modern welding ma-
tion of the welds and repairs. pressed air or an enriched air mixture, chines can have additional options, such
This article covers the diving, weld- with restricted depth and residence as hot start, arc force, and remote con-
ing, and metallurgical aspects of un- time. The advantage of such wet weld- trol functions, to make the welding easi-
derwater wet welding and cutting us- ing operations is that they are very er to execute, and to provide better pen-
ing covered electrodes based on indus- flexible and mobile, also ideal for short etration and protection of the welding
trial examples and applications for repairs and welding jobs in a larger arc during welding. Many specialist
joining and repair welding. area, in docks, waterways, floodgates, welding power source producers focus
locks, anchor lines, etc. The setup is their marketing efforts on underwater
Diving In also relatively quick and practical, from welding, since their product responds to
either the shore or a boat. Obviously, the special demands of underwater
When a diver submerges, their the underwater work has to be proper- welding companies.
body experiences the pressure of the ly scheduled and planned in detail.
surrounding water. With every 10 m Welding with coated electrodes is Setting Up
comes an additional bar in pressure. often applied for underwater welding
One bar of pressure equals a mass of but other welding processes, such as When the suitable welding source
1 kg on a 1-cm² surface area. As a re- gas metal arc welding (GMAW), flux has been determined, the connections
sult of this dive, the pressure on the cored arc welding (FCAW), and gas of the workpiece and the electrode
diver’s body at 10 m is two bar, one tungsten arc welding (GTAW), can also holder cable are as follows. From the
from the ambient surface pressure be applied when using special welding welding machine, one cable connects
plus one from the 10-m water column. guns with special nozzles. The weld to the electrode holder and another ca-
At 20 m, the pressure increases to quality with electrodes is acceptable ble to the workpiece connector, as
three bar, and so on. For the chest and very suitable for maintenance and shown in Fig. 2 (Ref. 2). The electrode
and lungs not to be compressed or repair welding, and for multipass fillet cable connects to the negative termi-

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 23

AA-Hilkes Underwater Feature– Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/7/20 9:09 AM Page 24

nal (straight polarity). When connect-

ing the electrode cable to the positive
terminal, electrolysis can occur, which
could potentially deteriorate the
metallic parts in the electrode holder.
Hence, the workpiece lead connects to
the positive terminal. The electrodes
can usually be welded with direct cur-
rent electrode positive (DCEP) or di-
rect current electrode negative
(DCEN), and many procedures are
welded DCEP as well, so when having a
problem losing the electrode holder,
DCEN could be a possible solution.
Precautions have to be taken to pre-
vent mixing up the cables with posi-
tive and negative polarity when
preparing the welding operation. A ful-
ly insulated electrode holder is used to
prevent any current passing through
the hand of the welder/diver, as cur-
rent always follows the way of least re-
sistance. To ensure the electrical safety
of the operation, the welder has to be
completely insulated from all electrical
circuits; the welder should wear water-
tight rubber or rubberized canvas
gloves, all the metallic parts inside the
helmet shall be completely electrically
Fig. 3 — Overview of an underwater welding operation setup with equipment and
insulated, and a dry suit should possi- support vessel. (Courtesy of Fred Neessen.)
bly be used to complete the overall
electrical insulation. When lowering
the electrode holder to the diver trode holder in hand. The airhose, the stake. A great deal of training, learning,
changing the electrodes, during any communication and light cables, and experience, and trust has to be intrinsic
break and in any case of possible dan- the depth tube all have a different color for cooperation within the whole team.
ger, the power shall be off with a zero and combine to form a so-called “um- The welder/diver has to be a highly
open circuit voltage (OCV). bilical” that connects the diver with the competent professional and commercial
This safety switch is only to be op- equipment on board the vessel. diver, as opposed to a sport diver,
erated to switch the welding current Although the breathing air for the knowing all the ins and outs of safe div-
on or off, upon the specific and direct welder is supplied from the bulk unit ing and also be an expert welder to exe-
request from the welder/diver in the or directly from the compressor on the cute welds under extreme, often dark
water below. vessel, referred to as surface supplied and cold, circumstances. When welding
An overview of the basic setup for equipment (SSE), the diver also needs underwater with electrodes, due to the
an underwater welding operation is il- to carry a small bottle on their back as gas that develops in the arc and the heat
lustrated in Fig. 3. The figure shows a safety precaution in case the supply that makes the water boil, the welder
the support vessel with the required from the SSE may encounter a prob- cannot really see the actual weld pool
equipment; the DC welding power lem and fail to supply breathing air. As and slag as he would under dry circum-
source, the workpiece leads, the bulk previously mentioned, the support stances. These conditions require the
cylinder with compressed air or mixed vessel can also carry a recompression welder to have an elevated skill level and
gas for the welder to breathe, and the tank for safety and for carrying out competence to produce a suitable and
audio-video communication system complex and deep diving operations. solid weld. The welding training there-
to connect the welder with the dive The full organization of such an opera- fore requires significant practice and
master/operator on the vessel. tion can become complex, since every- qualification welding with subsequent
The video connections make it pos- thing has to come together in one maintenance of the qualifications by re-
sible to follow the welding processes smooth and safe combination of peating the performance regularly.
and work underwater, for guidance events and in a team of individuals Many national and international
and/or for documentation of the ac- with different responsibilities. underwater welding and training facil-
tions. The knife switch connects the ities have been established to provide
workpiece and lead with the welding Staying in Touch organized training and practice as well
machine above. Below the water sur- as for qualification of welder/divers
face, the welder wears a full drysuit The communication between the and welding procedures under interna-
and diving helmet, carries a safety welder/diver in the water and the dive tional standards. Some standards used
cylinder with breathing air on his/her master/welding operator on the surface for such qualifications include AWS
back, and has a fully insulated elec- has to be seamless since lives are at D3.6M:2017, Underwater Welding

24 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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and weld metal increase to relatively

high levels. The amount of dissociated
water is proportional to the water
depth, hence, also the amount of hy-
drogen and oxygen in the arc and sub-
sequently in the weld metal.

2) The water pressure influences

the metallurgical processes in the elec-
trical arc and results in a change in
chemical composition, caused and en-
hanced by the higher oxygen content.

3) The surrounding water increases

the cooling rate, resulting in a three-
dimensional and shorter t8/5 time.
While preheating is usually not easy or
practical to carry out, the hardness of
the weld metal and adjacent base ma-
terial increases.

Waterproofing the Electrodes

When the coated electrode is ready,
it subsequently has to be protected
against the underwater environment,
which is the water itself, and the water
pressure from the depth. This means
applying protective waterproofing that
meets certain requirements such as
being nonconducting, nonhygroscopic,
impervious, not water solvable, clear,
can melt or burn away gradually dur-
ing welding, and seal-tight to the elec-
trode coating to prevent water coming
in between the sealing and the elec-
trode coating. It should also not have a
negative influence on the welding be-
havior and be strong enough and re-
sistant to impact or damage by the wa-
ter pressure. For example, a type of
alkyd resin varnish is used to provide
Fig. 4 — Essentials for the dive: electrodes in hermetically sealed metal cans to pro- an extremely tight waterproof coating
tect the electrodes before the welding operation, and a Kirby Morgan diving helmet. that meets these requirements.
(Courtesy of Jan Hilkes.) After the protective coating is ap-
plied, the electrodes should be proper-
ly packed in hermetically sealed metal
Code; ISO 15618-1:2016, Qualification pressure. This means that consum- cans or vacuum packaging to guaran-
testing of welders for underwater weld- ables need to be specially developed tee the optimal condition after trans-
ing — Part 1: Hyperbaric wet welding; and designed to meet the necessary port and storage, before the electrodes
and ISO 15618-2:2002, Qualification welding, chemical, and mechanical are used on the job — Fig. 4.
testing of welders for underwater weld- requirements under these extreme
ing — Part 2: Diver-welders and welding circumstances. Underwater Applications
operators for hyperbaric dry welding. When developing electrodes for un-
derwater welding (Ref. 3), three main Applications for underwater wet
Metallurgy and Electrode phenomena have to be taken into ac- welding and cutting are numerous
Coating Development count and play an eminent role in the considering how much steel is used in
chemical composition and the me- and around water. Just as naval or
Being underwater, electrodes are chanical properties of the resulting commercial ships and submarine hulls
exposed to both a wet or very high hu- weld: need welding patches or repairs, many
midity environment, the water/seawa- other situations require welding: plat-
ter, and an increased pressure caused 1) The surrounding water dissoci- forms or wind towers in the sea with
by the water pressure, whereas every ates in the electrical arc, hence, the hy- corrosion-preventing anodes welded
10 m of water depth equals one bar of drogen and oxygen content in the arc upon them; corrugated bulkhead pan-

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 25

AA-Hilkes Underwater Feature– Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/7/20 9:10 AM Page 26

els (sheet pile walls) in waterways

sealed with welds to make them water-
tight; and steel harbor constructions
such as water locks and sluice gates.
What all the welds in these applica-
tions have in common is that the ma-
jority are fillet welds and welded at
water depths down to about 20 m. In
the case of ships, it makes a huge dif-
ference when a welding repair is car-
ried out while in the water as opposed
to a very expensive dry dock solution.
For all these applications, wet welding
with electrodes is very suitable. Also,
electrodes are much more economical
than complicated underwater oxygen
arc cutting for underwater cutting of
Fig. 5 — Two welder/divers in a practice tank for training and qualification. (Courtesy small parts or forming a hole.
of the Royal Dutch Navy — Diving Group.)

Fig. 6 — Double welded lap joints,

partly made in the shop and partly
made underwater for the welding pro-
cedure qualification. (Courtesy of the
Royal Dutch Navy — Diving Group.)

Fig. 7 — A three-pass fillet weld ap-

pearance after welding and cleaning.
(Courtesy of the Royal Dutch Navy —
Diving Group.)

Fig. 8 — The cross section of the

three-pass fillet weld, perfect profile,
and penetration. (Courtesy of the Fig. 9 — A fully equipped welder/diver preparing to go under for underwater welding
Royal Dutch Navy — Diving Group.) and cutting. (Courtesy of Jan Hilkes.)

26 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

AA-Hilkes Underwater Feature– Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/7/20 9:10 AM Page 27

Since all these applications fall un- Navy. Figure 9 shows the welder/diver
der certain regulations and approvals, with insulating rubber gloves and get-
such as those governed by the Ameri- ting ready to plunge, standing behind
can Bureau of Shipping (ABS), DNV- an underwater workbench with a
GL, or Lloyd’s Register (LR), the weld- clamping device on a platform that can
ing procedure qualifications and the be lowered into the water for practic-
welder performance qualifications ing purposes. These welders have also
have to be carried out in accordance performed underwater cutting with
and under the supervision of these ap- the same electrodes.
proval agencies per their regulations. Using 240 A, a 10-mm plate could
easily be cut into many parts. The cut-
Putting it to the Test ting length is up to 200 mm with one
electrode. The electrode is 3.2 mm in
The Dutch Navy qualified using diameter and 450 mm long. The elec-
UTP Nautica 20 electrodes under LR trode length of 450 mm made it possi-
for welding patches or lap joints onto ble to distinguish them from the re-
naval ship hulls, in case the material pair electrodes used, which were 350
thickness has reduced due to corrosion mm. The welder can easily carry both
or other damage (Ref. 4). To qualify types to be prepared for all applica-
the wet welding procedures and the tions under water. WJ
welders, fillet welds were executed in
plates of 10 mm thickness. This took Acknowledgments
place in an indoor diving tank filled
with 3% saltwater to simulate marine The authors thank Gerrit Weer-
seawater conditions, as shown in stand and his colleagues of the Royal
Fig. 5. Dutch Navy — Diving Group for their
Part of the qualification welds were valuable contributions and practical
fillet welds that were produced in dou- insight on underwater welding as dis-
ble lap joints, prepared on one side cussed in this paper. Thanks also go to
with full fillet welds made in the work- Fred Neessen, an international weld-
shop. The other side was welded in the ing engineering consultant, for the ex-
tank with a 3.2-mm electrode at about pressive graphics (Figs. 2 and 3).
150 A in the downhill position. The References
test weld was a smaller size in order to
test if the specimen would break in the 1. Szelagowski, P. 2015. Unterwa-
weld or in the base material that was teterwasser-Schweißtechnik, Grundlagen
to be tested. - Forschung - Anwendung. DVS Media,
Figure 6 shows the double lap joints Düsseldorf, Germany.
with one side welded in the shop (left) 2. Keats, D. J. 1990. Professional
and the other side welded under water Diver’s Manual on wet-welding. Abing-
(right) showing the specimen broke in ton Publishing, Cambridge, England.
the base material or on the side of the 3. Hilkes, J., and Tuchtfeld, J. 2019.
workshop welds. The result of the Unterwasserschweißen mit umhüllten
multipass fillet weld in downhill posi- Stabelektroden für Schiffbau- und Off-
tion is shown in Fig. 7. The bead ap- shore-Anwendungen, DVS - Große
pearance was very good, especially Schweißtechnische Tagung, 16/17
considering the lack of visibility of the September, DVS Reports, Vol. 355,
welder. The cross section of this weld p. 385-397. DVS Media, Düsseldorf,
in Fig. 8 shows joint penetration, Germany.
which is one of the qualification re- 4. Bos, R. 2001. De kwaliteit van
quirements, proven by a break test een onderwatergelaste verbinding met
that shows the amount of penetration beklede electrode. NIL Lastechniek,
per length of weld. Oktober 2001: 4-8.
Practice Makes Perfect
Open-water training sessions are
organized for the entire underwater
diving and welding team of the Dutch

JAN HILKES ([email protected]) is managing director and JÜRGEN TUCHTFELD is

manager, global application engineering, at voestalpine Böhler Welding UTP Maintenance
GmbH, Bad Krozingen, Germany.

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 27

Pfaller Feature – September 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/5/20 4:24 PM Page 28

Understanding Shielding Gas

Flow in GTAW

BY ANDREW PFALLER

The combination of gas lens and

proper gas flow rate in GTAW
applications improves quality,
efficiency, and throughput.

Using the right shielding gas and following best practices can
help you save money

U
sing shielding gas flow rates that GTAW process requires an inert at- nozzle, which may restrict the opera-
are too high for gas tungsten arc mosphere to protect the tungsten tor’s ability to complete the weld.
welding (GTAW) applications (where the arc is generated) and, more
can double gas costs, resulting in up- importantly, the molten pool of the Adjusting the Shielding
wards of $3300 in added annual costs metal being welded — Fig. 2. One con- Gas Rate
per welder. Many operations may not sumable used for this in many GTAW
realize there is huge potential for im- applications is a collet body, which To overcome these quality or access
mediate payback and reduced costs by provides shielding gas coverage over issues, operations may take the com-
using a better gas consumable. the part being welded. mon step of increasing the shielding
Improper shielding gas flow can Companies often choose collet bod- gas. However, this only exacerbates
drive up costs through wasted gas and ies because they are a less expensive problems because increasing the flow
added rework. When there is a lack of method of delivering the shielding gas rate increases the instability in the gas
knowledge about shielding gas best compared to other options. However, column. Increasing the flow rate also
practices, operations might also use collet bodies can be the source of prob- causes more shielding gas to be con-
temporary solutions that don’t ad- lems that end up costing time and sumed than before — a point that is
dress the root issue and simply push money — much more than the initial often overlooked.
these hidden costs higher. small amount saved up front. This can drive up costs in the fol-
This article will help you learn the When using a standard collet body lowing three ways:
importance of using the right shield- in GTAW, a considerable amount of • Expenses associated with the
ing gas consumables and how follow- turbulence and atmospheric contami- consumable shielding gas. A 300-ft3
ing best practices can reduce opera- nation are introduced into the stream. tank costs on average $35, or $0.11 per
tional costs. This can cause issues such as porosity, ft3. If an operation uses one tank per
base metal oxidation (also called sug- welder per week, that’s $1750 per year
Standard Collet Bodies for aring on stainless steel), poor welding spent on shielding gas. Some opera-
GTAW performance, and arc flutter — prob- tions studied have used as much as 60
lems that are unacceptable in applica- ft3/h of gas in a high duty cycle appli-
Many operations use GTAW in tions that require high quality. cation, with approximately 50% arc-on
high-profile applications where the The turbulence in the shielding gas time. This would mean shielding gas
greatest weld aesthetics, quality, and flow also limits how far the tungsten costs are about $6600 per welder shift
integrity are required — Fig. 1. The can be extended past the end of the per year. If that company had 25

28 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

Pfaller Feature – September 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/10/20 4:24 PM Page 29

welders on two shifts, that’s about

$330,000 per year spent on shielding
gas alone.
• Time and materials lost to
rework. Greater instability in the gas
column can result in problems like
porosity, poor welding performance,
or arc flutter. In high-purity applica-
tions, this often means rework, which
can take three to seven times longer to
complete compared to a weld where no
rework is required.
• Downtime to change gas
cylinders. If the operation is using
shielding gas cylinders, going through
the gas at a faster rate results in more
downtime for changing out the gas
cylinders.
Fig. 1 — The GTAW process is often used in high-profile applications that prioritize Moderate shielding gas rates such
weld aesthetics, quality, and integrity. as 10 to 20 ft3/h are the most common,
and higher flow rates greater than 40
ft3/h are not generally recommended.
Most welding procedures specify a
proper cup or nozzle size and gas flow
rate. If an operation changes the cup
size without also adjusting the gas flow
rate, it has a drastic impact on the sta-
bility of the gas flow. Therefore, it’s im-
portant to make any changes in concert
with each other, rather than simply
changing gas flow rate or cup size alone.

Options to Improve Shielding

Gas Coverage
If increasing shielding gas flow isn’t
the answer, what can operations do to
improve shielding gas coverage and re-
sults in GTAW?
Switching from a collet body to a
Fig. 2 — The GTAW process requires an inert atmosphere to protect the tungsten gas lens consumable can offer better
and the molten pool.
results provided by improved gas flow,
which will help reduce secondary costs
— Fig. 3. Gas lenses often do have a
higher upfront cost, typically a few dol-
lars more per consumable compared to
collet bodies, but operations shouldn’t
be deterred by this. The small added
cost of a gas lens can deliver appropri-
ate gas coverage that significantly
helps reduce costs elsewhere.

Results of a Gas Lens Study

Past real-world applications have
shown that gas lenses do provide bet-
ter results. However, there were still
knowledge gaps about how exactly the
better results occurred, and what best
practices could be used to help opti-
mize results.
Miller Electric Mfg. LLC recently
Fig. 3 — Swapping your collet body for a gas lens consumable can give you better completed a study to better under-
results, including improved gas flow.
stand shielding gas flow and the dif-

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 29

Pfaller Feature – September 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/5/20 9:46 AM Page 30

ferences in gas lenses. To capture im-

agery, the study used Schlieren pho- A B
tography, which is essentially a scien-
tific method of developing the shad-
ows that result from light refracting
differently as it passes through vary-
ing densities of gas. Using this
method, the goal was to see the flow
pattern as shielding gas exits the front
of the GTAW torch. The gas flowing
out of the torch creates friction with
the stationary atmosphere, and this
friction causes the two gases to mix in
a wavelike form. These waves initially
start small but continue to grow until
the flow is fully turbulent.
This is known as the Kelvin-
Helmholtz (K-H) Instability, which oc-
curs when a gas has a different density
and/or velocity than the surrounding
gas. K-H Instability begins as a wavelike
motion at the outer edge of the shield-
ing gas column and ultimately grows Fig. 4 — A gas lens increases shielding gas coverage and reduces turbulence com-
until the flow becomes completely tur- pared to a collet body: A — Collet body in use; B — gas lens in use.
bulent. That turbulence introduces at-
mosphere into the shielding gas, which shielding gas column. This is because helps further transition the plug flow
reduces coverage effectiveness. larger nozzles produce lower gas veloci- into a fully developed flow, which de-
The study proved that using a gas ties, resulting in lower K-H Instabili- scribes a slower flow on the outer por-
lens vs. a collet body makes a substan- ties. Many companies will use the tions of the stream and higher flows in
tial difference in the flow pattern, smallest consumable possible to get the middle. With plug flow, K-H Insta-
with gas lenses producing a longer into tighter spaces. However, in actuali- bilities are decreased, and the stable
laminar, or stable, shielding gas col- ty, a larger nozzle can improve access laminar region of the shielding gas col-
umn and, therefore, having a lower by allowing the welder to stick the umn is longer. Similar to the larger
K-H Instability. tungsten out more, thus increasing visi- lens diameter, a longer converging-
bility and access to hard-to-reach areas. type nozzle also provides a longer lam-
Other Important Factors • Nozzle shape and lens design. inar shielding gas column.
Larger converging lenses provide
Keep in mind there isn’t one acces- longer laminar flow, but that doesn’t Improving GTAW with Proper
sory or consumable that will be the mean any lens with a large opening is Gas Delivery
perfect solution for every application a good choice. Nozzle shape and lens
because there are several variables in- design are very important to perform- A gas lens increases shielding gas
volved. However, the study showed ance. The ultimate goal is to guide the coverage and reduces turbulence com-
that the following factors and best shielding gas to the weld zone and pro- pared to using a collet body — Fig. 4.
practices can help optimize shielding vide a gentle blanket over the weldment. Gas lenses also allow the tungsten to
gas coverage: Regarding nozzle shape, a converging extend farther for more accessibility to
• Gas flow rate. As previously men- style gives coverage over the entire weld complex joints. While a gas lens
tioned, a gas flow rate that is too high orifice and helps transition the plug has a slightly higher upfront cost than
causes more instability. But be aware flow into a developed flow, which re- a collet body, operations will quickly
that too low of a flow rate can make duces K-H Instabilities or makes a sta- see return on that investment through
the gas more susceptible to interfer- ble column. A diverging or “champagne- significant reductions in gas and re-
ence from outside forces, such as wind style” nozzle gives a false sense of se- work costs. The combination of gas
or fans. Moderate rates, such as 10 to curity due to the lack of shielding in lens and proper gas flow rate in high-
20 ft3/h, are recommended. Lower the outer portion of the cup, like put- profile GTAW applications can help re-
flow rates with a gas lens can save 50% ting a funnel on the end of a garden duce or eliminate rework, cut costs,
or more in consumable shielding gas hose. The gas will continue to flow out and improve process efficiencies and
spend, which could eliminate more in a straight path, causing a false per- throughput. WJ
than $3000 annually per welder at ception of gas coverage that could
20% duty cycle at 60 ft3/h. Going back compromise the weld material. The
to the earlier example of an operation plenum/screen design also is impor-
with 25 welders, this is more than tant. Look for a lens with multiple ANDREW PFALLER (andrew.pfaller@
$75,000 in annual savings. screens that vary in mesh count to millerwelds.com) is an American Welding
• Nozzle diameter. The study vali- achieve optimal flow profile. Society Certified Welding Inspector and
dated that larger-diameter, converging- • Nozzle length. Another important segment manager at Miller Electric Mfg.
LLC, Appleton, Wis.
type nozzles provided a longer laminar factor is nozzle length. A longer nozzle

30 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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GAILEY FEATURE SEPT 20 WJ.qxp_Layout 1 8/5/20 4:27 PM Page 32

Shielding Gas:
Lower Your Costs by
Eliminating Inefficiencies

BY DAVID GAILEY

Shielding gas is typically one of the

largest expenditures that companies
incur to support their welding operations.

Learn how gas-saving

I
n an industry where every penny counts, finding ways to reduce costs is
essential. One of the areas with the most opportunities involves the use of
shielding gas, which is typically one of the largest expenditures that com-
devices, on-site panies make to support their welding operations. Fortunately, there are low-
cost solutions through equipment that maximizes the value these companies
blending, and get out of their gas purchases.
While it may seem counterintuitive on the surface, a small investment
continuous supply into the proper gas equipment can easily provide significant gas savings. The
following article presents simple upgrades to consider, if gas savings could
support operations benefit your organization.

32 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

GAILEY FEATURE SEPT 20 WJ.qxp_Layout 1 8/5/20 12:56 PM Page 33

waste within the process, the next step

is pinpointing where this waste is so it
can be eliminated.

Finding Savings in the

Surge
Reducing gas surge can lead to sig-
nificant cost savings.
These surges occur every time the
solenoid is activated, more precisely, at
every trigger pull on the welding
torch. Most flow control equipment
used with shielding gas, whether from
a cylinder or a pipeline, is designed to
operate at pressures of about 20 to 30
pounds per square inch gauge (psig),
while applications using pure carbon
dioxide may operate at pressures up to
50 psig. This means every time a
welder squeezes the torch trigger, the
upstream pressure of 20 to 30 or even
50 psig exits the welding nozzle, wast-
ing a large amount of gas when the
trigger is pulled.

Different Gas-Saving Devices

What can welders do to keep from
using higher flows than necessary or
that exceed the recommended rates?
There are many gas-saving devices
on the market that can greatly reduce
the amount of gas surge associated
with every trigger pull. These devices
include, but are not limited to, gas
guard regulators, point-of-use orifices,
lower pressure flowmeters, and even
surge reducing hoses — Figs. 1, 2.
These flow-control accessories set a
limit so excessive flow rates that make
the gas turbulent, drawing oxides and
nitrides into the weld, cannot be used.
While these devices have been around
for more than two decades, they rarely
receive sufficient attention until mar-
ket conditions create the need for
companies to seek out cost-saving
measures. Therefore, there is a great
deal of misunderstanding surrounding
these products.
Some of the more popular devices
that can be added to the wire feeder to
Where Do the wasted in your operations, and many control gas surge include gas-saving
will be surprised to find out that they regulators and point of use orifice fit-
Inefficiencies Occur? are wasting an enormous amount of tings. Welding professionals should be
gas in their shielding flow rates. wary of in-line restricted orifices as
As a first step, take an analytical When searching for ways to save shielding gas savers, as these devices,
look at each specific welding process costs, those who have set benchmarks if not installed at the correct point in
and determine benchmarks. Deter- in gas usage will most likely discover the gas stream, will not have any effect
mine the precise amount of gas need- that their processes are extremely in eliminating gas surge. The most ef-
ed to provide an adequate weld. This is wasteful when it comes to shielding fective way to eliminate shielding gas
crucial to determining where gas is gas. Then, after determining there is surge is to introduce a pressure-

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 33

GAILEY FEATURE SEPT 20 WJ.qxp_Layout 1 8/5/20 12:56 PM Page 34

regulating device into the gas system.

Point-of-use orifice fittings can
work well and are generally a low-cost
solution. However, to work properly,
the orifice fittings must be installed
precisely in front of the solenoid valve.
Anywhere else in the gas stream, like
back at the regulator or the flow me-
ter, will not work and the surge prob-
lem will remain.
In contrast, an inert gas guard can
be placed anywhere in the stream and
work effectively, taking that high up-
stream pressure and regulating it
down to eliminate the surge. When
the solenoid valve opens, there will
not be the usual high pressure up-
stream, so instead of 50 psig there is
only roughly 10 psig. That type of
change can easily result in significant Fig. 1 — Inert gas guard regulators reduce gas surge when a gas metal arc gun or
annual gas savings when added to a gas tungsten arc torch is activated.
welding machine.
This is an issue because welding such as in a construction site, fab tions, then the blender investment
equipment is typically designed to op- shop, or where equipment could be would be closer to $7000. Consider
erate at relatively high line pressures, handled roughly and not well main- the cost benefit not only to the
such as 20, 30, or 50 lb/in.2, and that tained, a lower pressure compensated streamlined supply chain, but also the
creates the high surge at the welding device may not be ideal and will cause reduction of downtime switching
nozzle. Also, the typical welding lead other issues. between jobs.
that has been in use for a while may be In addition to reducing costs Using a gas blender, gas mixtures
twisted, have a kink, or the gas dif- through waste-optimized shielding gas can be changed easily. Because this will
fuser can become partially clogged due systems, another option to consider is prevent companies from having to
to a build-up of spatter. This results in blending gases on-site. purchase many different cylinders
flow restrictions at the welding tip, with preblended mixtures, they can
which can only be overcome with more Add Flexibility and minimize their costs and streamline
shielding gas pressure. And the older their gas purchasing.
they get, the more imperfect these Customization by
welding leads become. This need to Blending Gases On-Site
clear out any imperfections or poten-
tial clogs that would restrict flow is Traditionally, gas metal arc welding
why many welding flow meters are de- is done with pure argon or with a mix-
signed to deliver 20, 30, or 50 psig of ture of argon and CO2. Whatever com-
pressure to the solenoid valve to be re- bination a company used, they would
leased when the valve opens. usually order the mixture to be deliv-
There are other types of shielding ered preblended in a cylinder. As weld-
gas flowmeters offered in the industry ing has evolved, the techniques used in
that are calibrated at atmospheric different applications have become
pressure or zero psig. These are typi- more and more specialized, with spe-
cally called “zero-comp” flowmeters, as cific blends of argon and CO2.
they release the flow of shielding gas Keeping in mind that many applica-
at atmospheric pressure with no back tions may require a different blend
pressure whatsoever. So when the so- every time they start a new job, many
lenoid opens, there is no wasteful back welders seek the flexibility to change
pressure to create the surge. their mixture on the fly to best suit
These lower pressure compensated different applications, projects, and
devices work better with newer weld- materials.
ing leads rather than older leads. Older But because gas blenders can cost
leads may have imperfections and anywhere from $1000 up to $10,000, a
kinks due to wear. This may require a company should consider how much
higher back pressure. However, a new gas it uses to determine the return on Fig. 2 — A typical flowmeter regulator
installation or an application, like a investment (ROI) of buying a gas is a fixed pressure/variable orifice de-
blender. For just a handful of stations, vice. Pressure is set at the factory to
technical trade school with many weld-
a compensated or calibrated pressure,
ing booths and students, would be an a minimal investment of around depending on the flow range desired
ideal choice for a lower pressure com- $1200 would likely suit their blending and the gases being used.
pensated device. Other applications, needs. However, for 28 welding sta-

34 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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bulk system is always the primary, but

with a six- or 12- pack of high-pressure
cylinders in reserve in case they were
unable to get a delivery of gas before
their bulk system was depleted. For
high-end, high-production companies,
this would provide the security of
avoiding downtime.
New technology is enhancing the
capabilities of these automatic
changeover manifold systems. With
new systems in development, like
DataSMART(TM) from Harris Products
Group, these will be interconnected
with data that can provide in-depth ef-
ficiency and usage analysis, as well as
providing alerts at preset levels both
internally and externally, so replenish-
ment becomes automatic — Fig. 3.
Additionally, systems that plug into
the Internet of Things could prevent
waste by not only monitoring a cylin-
der or cylinder bank to determine
Fig. 3 — Automatic switchover manifolds ensure a continuous supply of gas. Some
whether it needs to change over to the
systems, such as DataSMART, provide detailed data on usage and other information reserve cylinder, but users could also
to help users better manage gas consumption. easily program and adjust the
changeover pressure settings on either
side for further optimization. This
Going back to our welding school predetermined level. That alerts the would maximize gas usage and avoid
example, in a situation where every gas supplier to send out a truck to re- sending cylinders back to the supplier
welding booth will likely be using, for fill the bulk system. But if you are us- with as much as 25% of the gas still
instance, a 75/25 blend, an expensive ing packaged gases, changing cylinders left in them. DataSMART will feature a
gas blender might not be a good in- is an in-house job. And even more mass flow meter, too, that will meas-
vestment. In cases like these, it may than the responsibility, your revenue ure molecules of gas consumed in the
actually be beneficial to continue using stream ceases during the time it takes process to determine gas usage.
packaged gas in premixed cylinders. to change the cylinder. So when a
There is no hard and fast rule, but cylinder runs out, how long does it
it would be beneficial for many compa- take to change it out? And how much
Find the Best Fit to
nies to examine their processes, work- money does that cost? Over time, it Reduce Your Gas Waste
flow, and supply chain to determine can add up.
whether a gas blender may be a poten- However, this downtime can be re- If you want to control your welding
tial opportunity to increase productiv- moved from the equation by putting process and shielding gas system, then
ity while reducing costs. in a system with a continuous gas sup- you really need to understand how
ply. These automatic changeover man- eliminating inefficiencies in your sys-
ifold systems have a gas supply on tem can result in a significant cost re-
Continuous Gas Supply: duction and ROI. By analyzing the
both the left and right side, with one
Reducing Downtime and as the primary supply and the other as data, you may be surprised to learn
Increasing Productivity the reserve. When the primary cylin- how much you are wasting on shield-
der reaches a predetermined level of ing gas annually. If you do not have
It is estimated that more than 50% depletion, it seamlessly switches over sufficient gas-saving protocols in
of the welding market uses packaged to the reserve source, leaving plenty of place, an investment based on your
gas; either liquid dewars or high- time to replace the empty cylinder(s). unique needs could be a potential
pressured cylinders. In that case, those The former “reserve” side now be- windfall for you. There are many
companies should ask themselves comes the new “primary” side, and the options out there, so take advantage
whether it would be advantageous to system will switch back and repeat the of the data that you have to find
invest in a system that provides contin- process when the new primary side a solution that maximizes your
uous gas and never shut down. These goes empty. efficiency and output. WJ
companies are not making money In addition, fully automatic
when they cannot weld. And with large- changeover manifolds are becoming
production companies, every minute of popular and have been proven to be an DAVID GAILEY
downtime is extremely costly. ideal solution for high-pressure cylin- ([email protected]) is
In bulk gas systems, they come ders, liquid dewars, and even bulk sys- product manager of specialty gas products
equipped with an alarm that goes off tems requiring a packaged gas backup. for the Harris Products Group, a Lincoln
Electric Co., Mason, Ohio.
when the gas supply hits a certain, This manifold could be attached so the

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 35

Woolley Feat Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:25 PM Page 36

Adaptive Remote Laser

Welding Ushers in
Innovative Manufacturing
BY JASON WOOLLEY
This welding process determines part
location and beam position to meet weld
quality standards

R
emote laser welding was made are joined in the middle. This weld
popular at the turn of the centu- quality problem is often referred to as
ry. The ability to direct a beam false friend — Fig. 1. To overcome this
of light to the workpiece and join ma- problem, the part designer would de-
terials without contact promised to sign the part with more welds than it
dramatically reduce cycle time and actually needed to statistically prevent
lower manufacturing costs. However, part failure if a few false friends were
the technology was not widely adopt- present. Again, this process leads to
ed. Due to the inherently narrow laser excessive part weight, additional cycle
welds, and the large part-to-part toler- time, and increased part cost.
ance of the workpiece, products not What if there were a way to no
only had to be designed specifically for Fig. 1 — False friend — cross section longer worry about part location, and
the remote laser welding process, but shows no weld between the upper position the laser beam exactly on the
fixturing prices increased to better lo- and lower sheets. edge of the part? This would change tra-
cate parts. Ultimately, this increase in ditional lap welds to edge fillet welds.
both part and system cost limited the tion the beam, according to the model. With edge fillet welds, flanges can be re-
financial benefit of decreased cycle However, the real problem is that parts duced, part weight is lowered, part cost
time to only high-volume applications. are rarely placed in the same exact posi- is reduced, and inspectors can see the
In other words, if you were making tion. This inaccuracy of the parts re- top, bottom, and middle of the weld.
hundreds of thousands of the same sulted in the use of lap welds, which What if we no longer needed robust,
exact part per year, the financial justi- placed several millimeters of additional over-designed fixtures to push parts
fication could be made. material to the edge of the part to en- into exact locations and remove small
The challenge of broader industrial sure the weld did not miss the upper gaps* to prevent false friends? Both of
adoption of remote laser welding did sheet. This larger flange subsequently these things are now possible through
not stop there. The bigger problem increases the part weight and cost. utilization of an approach referred to as
was the beam positioning process. The The next problem with the process adaptive remote laser welding.
typical scanner optic is programmed is related to weld quality. With a lap Adaptive remote laser welding tech-
to position the laser beam based on a weld, an inspector can see the weld on nology provides a direct look at the
software coordinate system or comput- the top sheet. In the case of a com- workpiece; determines the location of
er-aided design model. The weld loca- plete joint penetration weld, the in- the edge that needs to be joined, if a
tions are loaded into the computer- spector can also see the weld on the gap is present between the two sheets;
controlled coordinate system, which in bottom of the lower sheet. What they makes on-the-fly adjustments to the
turn adjusts the scanner mirror to posi- cannot be sure of is if the two sheets process parameters; and positions the

*Note: The terms gap and gap bridging are typically referred to as sheet separation. The American Welding Society (AWS)
A3.0M/A3.0:2020, Standard Welding Terms and Definitions, defines sheet separation as “The distance between faying sur-
faces adjacent to the weld once a spot, seam, or projection weld has been produced.”

36 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

Woolley Feat Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:25 PM Page 37

Laser diode hits the measurement object and is Shape Recognition Cameras
diffusely reflected at an angle such
that it hits a cloud of individual, more Shape recognition technology is a
Line
CMOS sensor
or less bright points of light, onto the comparative process that looks for a
generator camera chip. The individual pixels are shape on the workpiece that matches a
array
filtered and summarized in an applica- predefined shape stored in the soft-
tion-specific integrated circuit chip. ware. The shape is located by the im-
Filters, both software and hardware age processing camera using a technol-
related, will remove the reflections ogy called dark field illumination. This
and other light influences. The data is process uses external lights that flood
then calculated by the seam tracking the part’s surface. When an image is
controller, and the position of the captured, the top surface appears light
Diffuse points of light on the chip are convert- gray while features below the surface,
reflected ed to positional information as it re- (such as holes, part edges, and slots)
laser light lates to the process. A profile of the appear to be darker. This dark image is
joint is assembled and the results are then compared with the stored shape,
linearized and compared with those of and a positive shape recognition is
the customer’s chosen seam profile. determined.
Other supporting parameters are cal- Once the shape is recognized, the
culated with respect to the profile and location of the shape on the image can
are then compared with the defined be determined based on the pixel loca-
values of the parameters set within tion. These parameters are then sent
Fig. 2 — Laser triangulation for optical the motion-control side of the process. to the scanning mirrors, which direct
seam tracking. Offset data is determined and then the laser beam to the correct location
output to the machine control, result- of the actual part being processed —
beam in the exact location required to ing in a modified motion path accord- Fig. 4.
meet weld quality standards. This ing to the offsets found during the Both technologies, laser triangula-
adaptive process is possible by seam tracking process. tion seam tracking and shape recogni-
tracking to position the beam via laser The information output from the tion, are made possible by ultra-fast 1
triangulation sensors or shape recog- sensor package will include informa- GHz on-board communication and
nition cameras. tion such as Y position, Z position, gap, high-powered scanner mirrors capable
mismatch, and angles about the sensor of 1000 Hz. This combination allows
Laser Triangulation datum. Analysis of the data provided process speeds of 1 m/s, which is neces-
Seam Tracking through software algorithms can use sary to make the highly dynamic reori-
the data to not only track the seam but entation movements needed to adapt
With optical seam tracking sensors, also adjust process parameters such as to real-time tracking requirements.
a laser beam is emitted from a diode laser power, spot size, Y-offset, ampli- When the two technologies are
integrated either into the unit or as tudes, and oscillation frequencies of combined into one tool, a new manu-
part of a line generator package — the beam. When combining the control facturing reality becomes possible: the
Fig. 2. This beam is converted by an of all of these process parameters, a replacement of resistance spot weld-
optical line generator into one or mul- true adaptive weld process is created to ing. Resistance spot welding has been
tiple (i.e., three) lines depending on accommodate the variation in the the go-to method for joining stamp-
the make of the sensor. The laser line parts — Fig. 3. ings in many industries, especially the

Fig. 3 — Adaptive remote laser welding with gap* bridging. Fig. 4 — Adaptive shape recognition.

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 37

Woolley Feat Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/7/20 10:13 AM Page 38

automotive industry. The process re-

quires access to both the top and bot-
tom of the final part. The heat created
in the process leaves visible deforma-
tions in the material, and electrodes
must be continuously replaced. The
spot welding guns themselves are big
and heavy, requiring robots to manipu-
late either the part or the gun, and the
process requires about 3 s per spot
weld. All of these limitations add up to Fig. 5 — Laser plug welding process.
additional subassemblies, heavier parts,
increased cycle time, greater manufac-
turing floor space, and higher product process faster allows more welds to changing modern manufacturing
costs. Remote laser processing can im- take place in the same manufacturing processes. With the advent of laser
prove these adverse factors through a cell, while remaining under the manu- triangulation seam tracking, shape
process called shaped fillet welding. facturing line’s required takt time. recognition imaging, and fast process-
Shaped fillet welding, often re- Toyota Motor Co. conducted a study ing speeds, we are finally able to real-
ferred to as plug welding, allows the that shows a 40% decrease in floor ize true adaptive joining methods.
design of the part to change because space requirements and a 50% reduc- These methods will allow us to over-
access to both the top and bottom tion of CO2 could be achieved if this come part variation and assembly fit-
sheets are no longer required. By technology is implemented as com- up issues as well as pave the way to a
adding a hole in the top sheet and us- pared with today’s body shop (Ref. 1). lighter, less costly production, all with-
ing shape recognition and laser trian- In addition to cost savings realized in a smaller manufacturing facility. WJ
gulation technology to locate this hole, with less equipment and floor space,
the laser can weld the edge of the top there are less consumables required. Reference
sheet directly to the bottom — Fig. 5. Finally, the weld process parameters
The entire process, including shape can be controlled so that complete 1. Pittman, Kagan. 2015. What
recognition, adaptive location, and joint penetration through the bottom engineers need to know about laser
weld completion, is approximately 0.5 sheet is avoided, thus allowing joining screw welding (LSW). engineering.com
s per weld, six times faster than tradi- on visible surfaces in many cases.
tional resistance spot welding. The in-
creased speed is not only a cycle time Conclusion JASON WOOLLEY ([email protected])
is key accounts laser group manager,
advantage, but also a manufacturing Abicor Binzel, Frederick, Md.
floor space advantage. Being able to Adaptive remote laser welding is

38 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

Cert Schedule - September 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 6:55 PM Page 39

CERTIFICATION SCHEDULE
CERTIFICATION SEMINARS, CODE CLINICS, AND EXAMINATIONS

Note: The 2020 schedules for all certifications are posted online at Location Seminar Dates (cont.)
awo.aws.org/instructor-led-seminars/seminar-exam-schedule/. Sacramento, CA Oct. 4–9
Dallas, TX Oct. 11–16
Denver, CO Oct. 25–30
Certified Welding Inspector (CWI) St. Louis, MO Nov. 1–6
Seminar covers Parts A, B, and C of the CWI exam. Only Part B
New Orleans, LA Nov. 8–13
of the exam is taken following the conclusion of the seminar.
Miami, FL Dec. 6–11
Parts A and C are given at Prometric testing centers.
Phoenix, AZ Dec. 6–11
Location Seminar Dates Part B Certified Welding Educator (CWE)
Exam Date Seminar and exam are given at all sites listed under Certified
Miami, FL Sept. 13–18 Sept. 19 Welding Inspector. Seminar attendees will not attend the Code
Houston, TX Sept. 13–18 Sept. 19 Clinic portion of the seminar (usually the first two days).
Seattle, WA Sept. 13–18 Sept. 19
Benicia, CA Sept. 20–25 Sept. 26 Certified Welding Sales Representative (CWSR)
Louisville, KY Sept. 20–25 Sept. 26 CWSR exams are given at Prometric testing centers. More in-
Minneapolis, MN Sept. 20–25 Sept. 26 formation at aws.org/certification/detail/certified-welding-sales-
New Orleans, LA Sept. 27–Oct. 2 Oct. 3 representative.
Boston, MA Sept. 27–Oct. 2 Oct. 3
Nashville, TN Sept. 27–Oct. 2 Oct. 3
San Antonio, TX Sept. 27–Oct. 2 Oct. 3 Certified Resistance Welding Technician
Miami, FL Oct. 4–9 Oct. 10 (CRWT)
Long Beach, CA Oct. 11–16 Oct. 17 A comprehensive two-day seminar to arm attendees with
Detroit, MI Oct. 11–16 Oct. 17 the knowledge needed to take the exam with confidence.
Tulsa, OK Oct. 11–16 Oct. 17 More information at awo.aws.org/crwt/.
Atlanta, GA Oct. 18–23 Oct. 24
Las Vegas, NV Oct. 18–23 Oct. 24 Location Seminar Dates
Houston, TX Oct. 18–23 Oct. 24 Nashville, TN Oct. 27–28
Kansas City, MO Oct. 25–30 Oct. 31
Pittsburgh, PA Oct. 25–30 Oct. 31
Orlando, FL Nov. 1–6 Nov. 7 Certified Welding Supervisor (CWS)
Indianapolis, IN Nov. 1–6 Nov. 7 CWS exams are given at Prometric testing centers. More infor-
Reno, NV Nov. 1–6 Nov. 7 mation at aws.org/certification/detail/certified-welding-supervisor.
Dallas, TX Nov. 1–6 Nov. 7
Sacramento, CA Nov. 8–13 Nov. 14 Location Seminar Dates
Miami, FL Nov. 8–13 Nov. 14 Atlanta, GA Dec. 6–11
Syracuse, NY Nov. 8–13 Nov. 14
Cleveland, OH Nov. 8–13 Nov. 14
Waco, TX Nov. 15–20 Nov. 21 Certified Radiographic Interpreter (CRI)
Norfolk, VA Nov. 15–20 Nov. 21 The CRI certification can be a stand-alone credential or can
San Diego, CA Dec. 6–11 Dec. 12 exempt you from your next 9-Year Recertification. More in-
Miami, FL Dec. 6–11 Dec. 12 formation at aws.org/certification/detail/certified-radiographic-
St. Louis, MO Dec. 6–11 Dec. 12 interpreter.

Certified Welding Inspector (CWI) Part B Location Seminar Dates Exam Date
Course covers only Part B of the CWI exam. The Part B exam Houston, TX Oct. 5–9 Oct. 10
follows the conclusion of the three-day course.
Certified Robotic Arc Welding (CRAW)
Location Seminar Dates Part B OTC Daihen Inc., Tipp City, OH; (937) 667-0800, ext. 218
Exam Date Lincoln Electric Co., Cleveland, OH; (216) 383-4723
Minneapolis, MN Oct. 21–23 Oct. 24 Wolf Robotics, Fort Collins, CO; (970) 225-7667
Louisville, KY Dec. 9–11 Dec. 12 Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee, WI;
(414) 456-5454
9-Year Recertification Seminar for CWI/SCWI College of the Canyons, Santa Clarita, CA; (661) 259-7800,
For current CWIs and SCWIs needing to meet education ext. 3062
requirements without taking the exam. Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College, Ogden, UT;
(801) 627-8448
Location Seminar Dates Genesis Systems IPG Photonics Co., Davenport, IA;
Orlando, FL Sept. 13–18 (563) 445-5688

IMPORTANT: This schedule is subject to change without notice. Please verify your event dates with the Certification Dept. to confirm your course status before
making travel plans. Applications are to be received at least six weeks prior to the seminar/exam or exam. Applications received after that time will be assessed a
$395 Fast Track fee. Please verify application deadline dates by visiting our website at aws.org/certification/docs/schedules.html. For information on AWS seminars
and certification programs, or to register online, visit aws.org/certification or call (800/305) 443-9353, ext. 273 for Certification; or ext. 455 for Seminars.

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 39

Workbook - Sept. 2020layout.qxp_Layout 1 8/7/20 2:30 PM Page 40

WELDING WORKBOOK
DATASHEET 399

Laser Beam Delivery and Focusing Optics

Fig. 1 — A Gaussian laser beam focused with a simple lens.

Laser beams must be focused to a small diameter to pro-

duce the high power density required for welding. Focusing Fig. 2 — Laser beam focusing heads.
is accomplished with transmitting lenses (Fig. 1) or reflective
mirrors (Fig. 2). The spot size can be varied by the design of
As the F-number used for a particular system decreases, so
the optics and the choice of focal length. For a given laser
does the focused spot diameter, resulting in greater power
beam, the final focused spot size is directly proportional to
density.
the focal length. The resultant power density is inversely
Fiber optic delivery is possible for Nd:YAG wavelengths
proportional to the square of the focal length, while the depth
and may provide additional flexibility in laser beam delivery
of focus attained varies directly with focal length. Therefore,
systems. Up to 6 kW of Nd:YAG wavelength energy can be
laser beams focused with short focal-length lenses require
delivered through a single quartz fiber as small as 300 m
greater precision in maintaining the lens-to-workpiece
(0.012 in.). A small percentage of energy is lost with the
distance than when longer focal-length lenses are used.
fiber, but transmission losses are negligible in distances of
The shortest practical focal length used for CO2 laser
100 m (328 ft) or less. During transmission within a fiber,
beam welding is about 125 mm (5 in.) because of the ad-
the beam path is fully enclosed and impervious to dust and
verse effects on focusing that result from the spatter and va-
contamination. Optical switching mechanisms can divert all
por produced during welding. Since the spot size at the focal
or part of the laser beam energy to multiple fibers serving
plane varies inversely with the diameter of the laser beam
multiple processing locations.
incident on the focusing optic element, a laser beam ex-
pander, i.e., an optical system used to increase the diameter
of the beam, may be used prior to focusing. This allows Focusing Systems
longer focal lengths to be used without loss of power densi-
ty. Figure 1 illustrates the ratio of the focal length of a lens The transmissive and reflective optics used in laser beam
to the diameter of a laser beam passing through the lens, in systems are lenses and mirrors. Solid-state laser systems, as
which the diameter (f/do) is referred to as the F-number. The well as lamp-pumped, diode-pumped, or direct-diode systems,
spot size of the focused laser beam, i.e., the focused beam generally use a lens to focus the laser beam on the workpiece.
spot diameter (ds), varies directly in proportion to the wave- The type of lens ranges from a simple plano-convex lens with
length () of the laser beam and the F-number of the focus- an anti-reflective coating to a compound lens, cylindrical lens,
ing system. This is expressed in the following equation: or lens with a graded index of refraction.
Gas lasers generally employ mirrors as reflective optics. The
ds = K(F-number) = K(f/do) mirrors are usually made of highly polished metal and are wa-
ter-cooled to withstand high-incident power. The mirrors may
where ds is the focused beam spot diameter; K is the quality be either bare or coated to enhance reflectivity. Compared to
measure specifying the ability to focus the laser beam; F- transmissive lenses, these mirrors are less sensitive to damage
number is the ratio of the focal length of the lens to the di- from spatter and fumes, and are easier to maintain in produc-
ameter of the beam passing through the lens; f/do is the di- tion welding. Highly polished copper or molybdenum mirrors
ameter of optic (F-number); and  is the wavelength of the are common, but gold-coated mirrors provide the highest re-
laser beam. flectivity, and thus the least amount of laser beam attenua-
The power density of the laser beam at the focus spot is tion. However, they are expensive and susceptible to surface
inversely proportional to the laser beam diameter, squared. damage because gold is relatively soft. WJ

Excerpted from the Welding Handbook, Ninth Edition, Volume 3, Welding Processes, Part 2.

40 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

Page 65.qxp_FP_TEMP 1/14/20 11:07 AM Page 65

American Welding Society®

MEMBERSHIP

SPPA
ARKING CONNEC
CTIONS –
2020 AW
WS MEMBERSHIPP CHALLENGE

What
h it is:
Be the spark
p that ignites
g s the people you know to
beecome AW
WS members, and get rewards.


Ho
ow it woorks:
Buuild up points throug hout the year for each
AWS
W Member you recr uit: 5 Points per Individual
Meembership and 1 Pointt per Student Membership.


What
W you get:
Grand Prize Winnner: $200 gift card
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3rd Plaace: $100 gift card
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Alll other participants earnning 10 or more points will get
AWS
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thrroughout 2020.

The Fine Print: All AWS members in good standinng may participate and are eligiblle to receive rewards based on points accrued
Januarry 1 – December 31 31, 2020
2020. Paarticipant eligibillity is determined at the sole discre
retion of AWS program administrators. AWS staff
members and administrators of commercial / corrporate or educational packaagges that inccllude AWS memberships in the pricing
structure are not eligible to participate. Foor more innformation, visit aws.org/be-the-sppark
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MBM_1002_2020_MAY
FINAL Society News – Sept. 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 5:47 PM Page 43

BY KATIE PACHECO — [email protected]

SOCIETY NEWS
AWS A5.36 Specification Withdrawn from Publication
By Teresa A. Melfi

American Welding Society (AWS) case. The reception from users was rials for metal arc welding, in 2014.
A5.36/A5.36M, Specification for Carbon that the specification itself, and the It is recognized that there will be an
and Low-Alloy Steel Flux Cored Electrodes classification designations in particu- impact on the welding community as
for Flux Cored Arc Welding and Metal lar, were too complex. A5.36 provided a result of the decision to withdraw
Cored Electrodes for Gas Metal Arc Weld- a lot of flexibility in how electrodes A5.36, but the clear message was to
ing, has been withdrawn as an AWS were classified — in the as-welded or move back to the previous specifica-
specification. It has also been with- postweld heat-treated condition, with tions as quickly as possible. To aid
drawn as a national specification un- various shielding gases, various users in this transition, three different
der the American National Standards strength levels, and various impact options are listed below. The most ap-
Institute (ANSI). A withdrawn stan- test temperatures. To accommodate propriate one may be selected based
dard is one that has been officially re- that flexibility, the classifications were on the consumable, the application,
moved from publication. It will not be quite complex and did not exactly “roll and the code or contract.
revised and will not be cited in new off the tongue.” The A5.36 designation 1) The most widely used cored wire
AWS standards or publications. This system is shown below. classifications from A5.18 and A5.20
decision, which was not taken lightly have always been included in A5.36.
by the A5 committees or the AWS These E70T- and E71T- classifications
Technical Activities Committee, was still account for the vast majority of
done in response to a clear direction flux-cored and metal-cored electrodes
from the welding community. used today. In these cases, no changes
AWS A5.36 was a classification to existing documentation should be
standard for flux cored arc welding necessary. The classifications will re-
and metal-cored arc welding elec- main the same as in the existing speci-
trodes. The specification was broad in fications, with metal-cored electrodes
scope and covered the following: classified in A5.18 and flux-cored
• All flux-cored electrodes classified electrodes classified in A5.20. These
to AWS A5.20/A5.20M, Specification classifications are listed below. In
for Carbon Steel Electrodes for Flux these cases, the only change that
Cored Arc Welding (E71T-1C, E71T-8, might be necessary is to reference
E71T-1M, etc.) Because of the lack of acceptance by A5.18 or A5.20, rather than A5.36.
• All flux-cored electrodes classified much of the industry, filler metal man-
to AWS A5.29/A5.29M, Specification ufacturers continued to classify elec-
for Low-Alloy Steel Electrodes for Flux trodes to A5.20, A5.29, A5.18, and
Cored Arc Welding (E80T1-Ni1M, A5.28, in addition to A5.36. One prod-
E70T8-Ni2, E91T1-K2C, etc.) uct often had multiple classifications,
• All metal-cored electrodes classi- which complicated the documentation
fied to AWS A5.18/A5.18M, Specifica- on qualification and welding proce-
tion for Carbon Steel Electrodes and Rods dure records and led to confusion
for Gas Shielded Arc Welding (E70C-6M, about which classification to use as an
E70C-3C, etc.) essential variable. Certificates of con-
• All metal-cored electrodes classi- formance could be many pages long,
fied to AWS A5.28/A5.28M, Specifica- and the print on the product labels be-
tion for Low-Alloy Steel Electrodes and came very small.
Rods for Gas Shielded Arc Welding
(E120C-K4, E80C-Ni1, etc.) How to Transition from
2) For electrodes other than these,
A5.36 Back to A5.18, mainly those electrodes used for weld-
Why A5.36 was A5.20, A5.28, or A5.29 ing low-alloy steels, the most efficient
Withdrawn method is to record the A5.18, A5.20,
AWS A5.36 was incorporated into A5.28, or A5.29 designations on
AWS A5.36 was first published in the following documents: AWS D1.1/ records. Qualification and welding
2012 with the thought that welding D1.1M, Structural Welding Code — Steel, procedure records from before 2012
consumable manufacturers and users in 2015; American Society of Mechani- will already carry only these refer-
would gravitate to this specification, cal Engineers, Boiler & Pressure Vessel ences. Records from after 2012 might
and AWS A5.20 and A5.29 could be Code, Section II, Part C, in 2013; and carry both the A5.36 electrode classifi-
withdrawn. However, that was not the CSA W48, Filler metals and allied mate- cation and the classification from

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 43

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SOCIETY NEWS
A5.18, A5.20, A5.28, or A5.29, since Additional Consumable can be used to specify the details of
these designations were retained on testing, the acceptance criteria, and
most product and certification docu- and Weld Metal Properties whether the testing be done on a spe-
ments by the electrode manufacturers. cific heat or lot of electrode. Terms like
3) For records created since 2012 A5.36 contained provisions to clas- “heat,” “lot,” and “certified material
that carry only an A5.36 classification sify electrodes under a wide variety of test report” are defined so there is no
designation, a bit more detail is neces- welding and testing conditions. Some- confusion regarding the level of test-
sary. Tables B.1, B.2, and B.3 from times information is needed about an ing, the lot classification, or the docu-
A5.36 show equivalents from A5.36 electrode or its weld metal properties, mentation that will be supplied. A5.01
and the corresponding A5.18, A5.20, such as impact testing at low tempera- is a valuable tool for procurement of
A5.28, and A5.29 classifications. If tures or the properties of weld metal any consumables with nonstandard
the A5.36 classification recorded on deposited with a specific shielding gas. testing or reporting requirements and
the qualification or welding procedure In these cases AWS A5.01, Procurement can be used to fill any gaps in informa-
is not listed there, the electrode manu- Guidelines for Consumables — Welding tion that may come about from the
facturer should be consulted to deter- and Allied Processes — Flux and Gas withdrawal of A5.36. WJ
mine the appropriate designation. Shielded Electrical Welding Processes,
TERESA A. MELFI ([email protected]) is a Technical Fellow at The Lincoln Electric Co., Cleveland, Ohio, and chair of the AWS A5
Committee on Filler Metals and Allied Materials.

AWS Celebrates Its Life Members with Exclusive Offers

Experience and involvement to become an AWS Life Member. tion to the AWS Professional
should be celebrated, and the Ameri- AWS Life Members are exempt Program.
can Welding Society (AWS) honors from further payment of dues and To learn more about AWS Life
those who have shared a significant continue to receive all benefits of the Membership, and to check your sta-
portion of their lives with AWS. Any AWS Individual Membership, includ- tus, contact Darrill A. Gaschler, AWS
individual who has served as presi- ing the Welding Journal; access to dis- senior manager of Sections and Stu-
dent of the Society or has reached 35 counts on publications, education, dent Chapters, at [email protected]
years of paid membership is eligible and certification; and free registra- or (800) 443-9353, ext. 260.

Candidates Sought to Receive the MIT Masubuchi Award

The Prof. Koichi Masubuchi award, materials joining through research and dation from fellow researchers to Prof.
with a $5000 honorarium, is present- development. Todd Palmer, [email protected]. This
ed to one person, 40 years old or Send a list of your candidate’s expe- award is sponsored annually by the
younger, who has made significant rience, publications, honors, awards, Massachusetts Institute of Technolo-
contributions to the advancement of and at least three letters of recommen- gy, Dept. of Ocean Engineering.

Nominate AWS Members to be Profiled

The Welding Journal is celebrating To nominate an AWS member, [email protected].
the diversity of its membership by submit a short statement about what To see member profiles from previ-
profiling AWS members each month in makes the nominee a noteworthy ous issues, visit aws.org/about/page/
its Society News section. Brian Keeton member, along with the nominee’s diversity-inclusion.
is profiled on page 48. contact information, to Katie Pacheco,

44 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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SOCIETY NEWS
TECH TOPICS

Opportunities to Contribute to Committee (C, E, G). Hybrid weld- standards be open to public review for
AWS Technical Committees ing, C7D Subcommittee (G). Welding comment during the approval process.
of machinery and equipment, D14 This column also advises of ANSI ap-
Committee (C, E, G, U). proval of documents.
The following committees welcome
M. Diaz, [email protected], ext. 310. A5.29/A5.29M:20XX, Specification
new members. Some committees are
Resistance welding, C1 Committee for Low-Alloy Steel Electrodes for Flux
recruiting members with specific inter-
(C, E, G, U). Friction welding, C6 Cored Arc Welding. Revised Standard.
ests in regard to the committee’s scope,
Committee (C, E). Automotive weld- $36.00. ANSI public review expired
as marked below: Producers (P), Gener-
ing, D8 Committee (C, E, G, U). Re- 8/31/2020. Contact: R. Gupta, ext. 301,
al Interest (G), Educators (E), Consult-
sistance welding equipment, J1 [email protected].
ants (C), and Users (U). For more infor-
Committee (C, E, G, U). Welding in D17.3/D17.3M:20XX, Specification
mation, contact the staff member list-
the aircraft and aerospace indus- for Friction Stir Welding of Aluminum
ed or visit aws.org/library/doclib/
try, D17 Subcommittee (C, E, G). Alloys for Aerospace Applications. Re-
Technical-Committee-Application.pdf.
S. Hedrick, [email protected], ext. vised Standard. $38.00. ANSI public
S. Borrero, [email protected], ext.
305. Metric practice, A1 Committee review expired 8/24/2020. Contact: M.
334. Definitions and symbols, A2
(C, E). Mechanical testing of welds, Diaz, [email protected], ext. 310.
Committee (E). Titanium and zirco-
B4 Committee (E, G, P). Joining of J1.3/J1.3M:20XX-AMD1, Specifica-
nium filler metals, A5K Subcommit-
plastics and composites, G1 Com- tion for Materials Used in Resistance
tee. Piping and tubing, D10 Com-
mittee (C, E, G). Safety and health Welding Electrodes and Tooling. Addenda.
mittee (C, E, U). Welding practices
committee, SHC Committee (E, G). $27.00. ANSI public review expired
and procedures for austenitic
Welding in sanitary applications, 8/17/2020. Contact: M. Diaz, ext. 310,
steels, D10C Subcommittee. Alu-
D18 Committee. [email protected].
minum piping, D10H Subcommittee.
J. Rosario, [email protected], ext.
Chromium molybdenum steel pip-
308. Procedure and performance
ing, D10I Subcommittee. Welding of
qualification, B2 Committee (E, G). New Standards Approved by
titanium piping, D10K Subcommit-
Thermal spraying, C2 Committee ANSI
tee. Purging and root pass welding,
(C, E, G, U). Oxyfuel gas welding
D10S Subcommittee. Low-carbon
and cutting, C4 Committee (C, E, G). C3.9M/C3.9:2020, Specification for
steel pipe, D10T Subcommittee. Or-
Welding iron castings, D11 (C, E, G, Resistance Brazing. Approval Date:
bital pipe welding, D10U Subcom-
P, U). Railroad welding, D15 (C, E, G, 7/9/2020.
mittee. Duplex pipe welding, D10Y
U). Robotic and automatic welding,
Subcommittee. Joining metals and
D16 Committee (C, E).
alloys, G2 Committee (E, G, U). Reac-
tive alloys, G2D Subcommittee (G). Revised Standard Approved
R. Gupta, [email protected], ext. 301. by ANSI
Filler metals and allied materials, Technical Committee Meetings
A5 Committee (E). Magnesium alloy
All AWS technical committee meet- A5.28/A5.28M:2020, Specification
filler metals, A5L Subcommittee.
ings are open to the public. Contact for Low-Alloy Steel Electrodes and Rods
P. Portela, [email protected], ext.
the staff members listed or call for Gas Shielded Arc Welding. Approval
311. Additive manufacturing, D20
(800/305) 443-9353 for information. Date: 6/30/2020.
Committee (C, E, G). The D1N Sub-
The Fall 2020 D1 Committee and A5.34/A5.34M:2020, Specification
committee on Titanium Structures is
Subcommittees on Structural Welding for Nickel-Alloy Flux Cored and Metal
recruiting all interest groups.
meetings will occur via teleconferences Cored Welding Electrodes. Approval
J. Molin, [email protected], ext. 304.
at the discretion of the D1 Task Groups, Date: 6/30/2020.
Structural welding, D1 Committee
D1 Subcommittees, and D1 Main C3.8M/C3.8:2020, Specification for
(E). Sheet metal welding, D9 Com-
Committee Chairs. Contact: J. Molin, the Ultrasonic Pulse-Echo Examination
mittee (C, G). The D1 Committee is re-
[email protected], ext. 304. of Brazed Joints. Approval Date:
cruiting educators. The D9 Committee
7/9/2020.
is recruiting producers, consultants,
and general interest members.
K. Bulger, [email protected], ext. Standards for Public Review
306. Methods of weld inspection, Amendment Standard
B1 Committee (C, E). Brazing and AWS was approved as an accredited Approved by ANSI
soldering, C3 Committee (C, E, G). standards-preparing organization by
Welding in marine construction, the American National Standards In- D1.4/D1.4M:2020-AMD1, Structur-
D3 Committee (C, E, G, U). High en- stitute (ANSI) in 1979. AWS rules, as al Welding Code — Steel Reinforcing
ergy beam welding and cutting, C7 approved by ANSI, require that all Bars. Approval Date: 7/14/2020.

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 45

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SOCIETY NEWS
MEMBERSHIP ACTIVITIES

New AWS Supporters Great Bay Community College

5 Milton Rd., Ste. 32
AWS Member Counts Rochester, NH 03867
August 1, 2020 Sustaining Members
Hartman Welding & Fabrication LLC
AOES LLC
Sustaining ..........................................584 3719 E. Hwy. 90
13507 Gulf Blvd.
Supporting ........................................358 Brookshire, TX 77423
Madeira Beach, FL 33708
Educational ......................................829
Affiliate ..................................................610 Hoek Iron Ltd.
Elite Welding & Industrial Services
Welding Distributor..........................62 8119 101 Ave.
LLC
Total Corporate ..........................2443 279 Kefauver Rd.
Fort St. John, BC V1J2A2 Canada
Individual ......................................57,090 Millwood, KY 42762
Lowell Senior High School —
Student + Transitional .................9,937 Tri-Creek School Corp.
Total Members ......................67,654 IQS Inspection LLC
2051 E. Commercial Ave.
1718 Engineers Rd., Ste. A
Lowell, IN 46356
Belle Chasse, LA 70037
Viswam Institute of Maritime Studies
KS Engineers P.C.
2020 Membership Challenge 494 Broad St., 4th Floor
762 E. Second Main Rd.
KTC Nagar Palayam Kottai, Tirunelveli
Newark, NJ 07102
Listed here are the members who Tamil Nadu 627011 India
participated in the 2020 Membership PTT Exploration and Production
Challenge — point standings as of Public Co.
July 16. The campaign runs from Jan. Energy Complex Building A Supporting Company Members
1 to Dec. 31, 2020. Members receive 5 6th and 19–36th Floor
points for each Individual Member 555/1 Vibhavadi-Rangsit Rd. Bar H Welding LLC
and 1 point for every Student Member Bangkok, Thailand P.O. Box 2766
they recruit. Kilgore, TX 75663
For more information, please see
Qube-MRS LLC
page 41 of this Welding Journal or call Depue Mechanical
1625 Candler Rd.
the AWS Membership Dept. at (800) P.O. Box 857
Gainesville, GA 30507
443-9353, ext. 480. 113 S. Ridge Rd.
J. W. Fregia, Houston — 95 Minooka, IL 60447
State Fabricators
A. D. Dillon, Detroit — 38
30550 W. 8 Mile Rd.
S. A. Milner, San Francisco — 36 New England Small Tube Corp.
Farmington Hill, MI 48336
B. J. Cain, Los Angeles/Inland 480 Charles Bancroft Hwy.
Empire — 34 Litchfield, NH 03052
J. P. Theberge, Boston — 31 Vigor Works LLC
J. C. Durbin, Tri-River — 30 9700 SE Lawnfield Rd.
D. L. Galiher, Detroit — 29 Clackmas, OR 97015
T. A. Uff, Lehigh Valley — 29 Affiliate Corporate Members
D. P. Thompson, SW Virginia — 29
A. P. Duris, NW Ohio — 26 Educational Institution Abbott Properties
R. Young, Iowa — 24 Members 1523 Oak St.
T. Edwards, Tulsa — 20 Kansas City, MO 64108
H. J. Merrill II, Louisville — 20 Caddo Kiowa Technology Center
W. H. Wilson, New Orleans — 17 1415 N. 7 St. Apex Mechanical
B. A. Cheatham, Columbia — 17 Fort Cobb, OK 73038 248 Miles Hill Rd.
O. Ortiz, Los Angeles/Inland Cecilia, KY 42724
Empire — 16 Clark State Community College
G. J. Smith, Lehigh Valley — 15 570 East Leffel Lane Factory Direct Supply WPB
C. W. Gilbertson, Northern Plains — 14 Springfield, OH 45501 1733 Hill Ave.
C. Consentino, Pittsburgh — 13 Mangonia Park, FL 33407
V. O. Harthun, Northern Plains — 13 Detroit Lakes Public Schools —
T. A. Harris, Johnstown-Altoona — 13 Detroit Lakes High School Lowder Steel Inc.
S. Silverstein, Milwaukee — 12 702 Lake Ave. 2450 Coltrane Mill Rd.
M. D Stein, Detroit — 11 Detroit Lakes, MN 56501 Archdale, NC 27263

46 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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SOCIETY NEWS
Richards Industries Scenic Ridge Co.
4 Fairfield Crescent 2550 Steelton Rd.
Change of Address? Moving?
West Caldwell, NJ 07006 Lancaster, PA 17601
Make sure delivery of your
Welding Journal is not interrupted.
RWP Inspections Ltd. Solid Form Fabrication Inc.
Contact Kim Hugley in the
3995 Hi Mount Dr. P.O. Box 119
Membership Department with your
Victoria, BC 2706 NE Rivergate St.
new address information — (800)
V9C 3X9 Canada McMinnville, OR 97128
443-9353, ext. 204; [email protected].

AWS District 17 Conference Held in Texas

American Welding Society's District 17 held its annual conference on June 5–6 at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Tyler, Tex. Conference attendees
included District 17 Director J Jones, Bryan Baker, Andy Stormer, Paul Wittenbach, Jim Bridwell, Paul Stanglin, and Donnie Williams. Pictured are
conference attendees and their wives.

(From left) Debra and Paul Stanglin of the AWS North Texas Section
AWS District 17 Director J Jones (right) presented Paul Wittenbach with presented AWS District 17 Director J Jones with a metal-crafted yellow
the District CWI of the Year Award. rose of Texas in appreciation of his service.

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 47

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SOCIETY NEWS
AWS Member Profile

“The most rewarding thing about being a

welding instructor is having a student come
back after graduation and tell me I changed
their life.”
welding business out of a local garage, After more than ten years as
performed welding repairs on equip- NW-SCC’s welding instructor, Keeton
ment for the logging industry, joined still enjoys his job.
the Tennessee National Guard as a “The most rewarding thing about
mechanic/welder, and worked for the being a welding instructor is having a
Sheet Metal Workers Local 48. He also student come back after graduation
returned to college, earning an associ- and tell me I changed their life,” he af-
Brian Keeton
ate’s degree in welding from Northwest- firmed. “Most students you never hear
Shoals Community College (NW-SCC) from until they need you, but it is a
Brian Keeton’s journey with weld- in Alabama. great feeling when someone just stops
ing began in his high school agricul- “I decided to take welding in college by to say, ‘thanks for what you taught
ture (AG) class, where he learned so I could obtain industry-recognized me.’”
shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) credentials to help me get a better job,” He teaches SMAW; gas tungsten,
using old, well-worn equipment. he said. “I learned a lot at Northwest- gas metal, and flux cored arc welding;
“We had only AC [alternating cur- Shoals. Before I attended, I could melt plasma and carbon arc cutting; and
rent] machines and had to hold our two pieces of metal together and make oxyfuel cutting.
hood up with one hand and weld with them hold, but there I learned the “As much as the trade of welding, I
another,” he recollected. “I learned the proper way of doing things and the think we teach life’s lessons,” he said.
basics of SMAW in the flat, horizontal, theory behind it. I discovered there is “Many of our students just need direc-
and vertical positions.” more to welding than dropping a hood tion or a little nudge in the right direc-
Drawn more to welding than to and making sparks.” tion, and that, along with a skilled trade,
academic subjects, Keeton took AG all Leaving a lasting impression on the can completely change their lives.”
four years of high school, even signing school’s instructors, Keeton was of- A long-time AWS member, Keeton
up for the class for three periods in his fered a job as an instructor’s assistant. became involved with the AWS Greater
senior year. After nine months, he was promoted Huntsville Section in 2016. He helps
“I hated learning from a book but to welding instructor and took over the Section organize its local SkillsUSA
have always been pretty good at the dual-enrollment welding classes high school welding competitions. When
watching someone do something and for Russellville City School District asked why he volunteers his time with
then doing it myself,” he recalled. and the Franklin County Career Tech- the Section, he identified networking
The welding skills learned in high nical Center. He then established the with other educators, as well as indus-
school allowed Keeton to excel in the welding program in NW-SCC’s Phil try members, as a major benefit.
U.S. Army, where he worked as a Campbell campus, where he currently “Most of my AWS Section is made
Bradley Fighting Vehicle mechanic. works. up of educators or retired educators,
The job required him to regularly per- Additionally, Keeton went on to so they feel my pain. I think the AWS
form welding and cutting operations. earn a bachelor’s in career technical Section is a great way to network with
“My welding skills were significant- education and a master’s in education. others who have the same student is-
ly better than the others. I ended up He also became an American Welding sues, and we can discuss what they
doing most of the welding,” he said. “I Society (AWS) Certified Welding In- have done to overcome the issues. We
guess learning the basics with old, spector (CWI) and Certified Welding are all in this business to train the
worn-out equipment made it easier to Educator (CWE). workforce of the future, and we want
make myself look good when given the “I feel the more knowledge I have, to see results of the pride and crafts-
opportunity to weld with good rods the more I can pass on to my students,” manship we are trying to instill in the
and equipment.” Keeton explained. “I became a CWI/ future generation,” he explained. “Our
After serving in the military for six CWE for the benefit of my students. I members who are not educators are
years, Keeton began working at Wal- am the only welding instructor on the involved in the welding industry. I
mart’s meat market, where he was pro- Phil Campbell campus of Northwest- consider the AWS Section an exten-
moted to manager. Although he en- Shoals, and I think my CWI/CWE cre- sion of my local advisory committee. It
joyed it, after six years, he felt ready to dentials make them feel like they are gives me an idea of what I can change
return to welding. getting trained from a subject-matter in my welding program to help stu-
In the years ensuing, Keeton took expert who gives them confidence dents obtain jobs in a larger geograph-
on various welding jobs. He ran a when they get to a job site.” ic area.”

48 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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BY CINDY WEIHL — [email protected]

SECTION NEWS
AWS Reading Section. The scholarship equipment. Students witnessed robot-
District 1 is for $2000. ic gas metal arc welding (GMAW) of a
Douglas A. Desrochers, director large carbon steel frame, mechanized
(508) 763-8011 GMAW seam welding of thin-gauge
[email protected] District 4 stainless steel shells, and flux cored
Mr. Lynn Showalter, director arc welding of thick stainless steel
CONNECTICUT (757) 848-8029 press cans. Students also learned
June 4 [email protected] how welding in the flat position in-
Location: Barkhamsted, Conn. creases speed and productivity.
Presenters: Douglas A. Desrochers,
District 1 director; and John Jones,
Section chair
District 5 District 10
Howard Record, director
Summary: Desrochers traveled to Mike Sherman, director
(352) 816-0835
Barkhamsted to assist Jones in record- (216) 570-9348
[email protected]
ing a video presentation in honor of [email protected]
the Connecticut Section Named Schol-
arship Award, changing its name to
the Walter Chojnacki and Albert J. District 6
Moore Jr. Connecticut Section Schol- Ronald Stahura, director
arship. The video was played during (716) 207-7869
the virtual District 1 Conference on [email protected]
June 13.

District 7
District 2 Roger E. Hilty, director
Harland Thompson, director (740) 317-9073
(631) 546-2903 [email protected]
[email protected]

District 8 CONNECTICUT — Seen are the crystal

District 3 James Thompson, director awards for the newly named Walter
Sean Moran, director (256) 347-6481 Chojnacki and Albert J. Moore Jr. Con-
necticut Section Scholarship.
(717) 885-5039 [email protected]
[email protected]

READING District 9
June 20 Michael Skiles, director
Location: Womelsdorf, Pa. (337) 501-0304
Presenter: Lisa Davis, Section scholar- [email protected]
ship chair
Summary: The Reading Section 100 NEW ORLEANS
Millennium Scholarship was presented March 13
to Jack C. Yengo, a student at Pennsyl- Location: Kenner, La.
vania College of Technology pursuing Summary: Section Vice Chair Bruce
a bachelor’s of science degree in weld- READING — Section Scholarship Chair
Hallila arranged for Delgado Commu- Lisa Davis (left) presented Student
ing and fabrication engineering tech- nity College welding students to take a Jack C. Yengo with a $2000 Section
nology. Yengo is a member of both his plant tour of Pellerin Milnor Corp., a Scholarship.
school’s AWS student chapter and the manufacturer of commercial laundry

NEW ORLEANS — Delgado Community College welding students toured Pellerin Milnor Corp.

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 49

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SECTION NEWS
CENTRAL VALLEY
District 11 District 19 February 26
Phillip Temple, director Shawn McDaniel, director Location: College of the Sequoias,
(734) 546-4298 (509) 793-5182 Tulare, Calif.
[email protected] [email protected] Summary: College of the Sequoias
hosted a Section meeting focused on

District 12 District 20 exposing local students, educators,

and industry partners to various
Dale Lange, director Denis Clark, director methods and techniques used in the
(715) 732-3645 (208) 357-6626 nondestructive examination of welds.
[email protected] [email protected] Representatives from Krazan & Asso-
ciates Inc. gave in-depth presentations
COLORADO and Kip Williamson presented on weld
District 13 June 1
Location: Ruby Hill Park, Denver,
discontinuities, followed by demon-
strations of magnetic particle inspec-
Ronald Ashelford, director Colo. tion and ultrasonic testing performed
(815) 218-8766 Summary: The Section presented Cer- by Jose Acosta and Casey Mathis. The
[email protected] tified Welding Inspector Awards to meeting was attended by more than
Norma Escobedo, welding lead at Lib- 40 individuals and concluded with Sec-
erty Home Products; and Chad Jack- tion Chair Randy Emery’s presenta-
District 14 son, Colorado Department of Trans- tion of the Section Educator Award to
Tony Brosio, director portation. A Section Instructor Award Ricardo Gonzalez, welding instructor
(765) 215-7506 was presented to Jessica Lanka. at Farmersville High School.
[email protected]

District 21
District 15 Sam Lindsey, director
Michael Hanson, director (858) 740-1917
(763) 221-5951 [email protected]
[email protected]
District 22 CENTRAL VALLEY — Section Chair
District 16 Robert Purvis, director Randy Emery (left) presented the
Section Educator Award to Ricardo
Karl Fogleman, director (916) 599-5561
[email protected] Gonzalez.
(402) 677-2490
[email protected]

District 17
J Jones, director
(832) 506-5986

District 18
Thomas Holt, director
(409) 721-5777 COLORADO — Section Chair Jeremy Mowry (far left) and AWS Past President Bob
[email protected] Teuscher (far right) presented awards to Section members (from left) Norma Es-
cobedo, Chad Jackson, and Jessica Lanka.

CENTRAL VALLEY — Section meeting attendees gather for a group photo.

50 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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GUIDE TO AWS SERVICES

American Welding Society® Senior Sales Executive, Expositions Program Managers
8669 NW 36 St., #130 Sarah Dickson.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . .(297)
Miami, FL 33166-6672 Stephen Hedrick.. [email protected] . . . . . . . .(305)
(800/305) 443-9353 EDUCATION & TRAINING Metric Practice, Safety and Health, Joining
Phone extensions are in parentheses. Director of Plastics and Composites, Personnel and Facil-
Alicia Garcia.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . .(229) ities Qualification, Mechanical Testing of Welds,
AWS PRESIDENT Welding in Sanitary Applications
Robert W. [email protected]
President and CEO, RoMan Manufacturing Inc. INFORMATION SYSTEMS Stephen Borrero.. [email protected] . . . . . . .(334)
Managing Director Definitions and Symbols, Structural Sub-
John Perry.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(247) committees on Bridge Welding, Reinforcing
SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM Steel and Stainless Steel, Joining of Metals and
Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer Alloys, Piping and Tubing
Gary Konarska II.. [email protected] . . . . .(207) ITSA — INTERNATIONAL THERMAL
SPRAY ASSOCIATION Rakesh Gupta.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . .(301)
Chief Financial Officer/ Program Manager Filler Metals and Allied Materials, Interna-
Chief Administrative Officer Alfred Nieves.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . .(467) tional Filler Metals, UNS Numbers Assignment,
Gesana Villegas.. [email protected] . . . . . . .(252) Computational Weld Mechanics
RWMA — RESISTANCE WELDING
Senior Vice Presidents MANUFACTURING ALLIANCE and WEMCO — Jennifer Molin.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . .(304)
Cassie Burrell.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . .(253) ASSOCIATION OF WELDING MANUFACTURERS Structural Welding, Sheet Metal Welding
Research, Strategy, and Membership Program Manager
Adrian Bustillo.. [email protected] . . . . . . . .(295) Mario Diaz.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . .(310)
John Gayler.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . .(472) Automotive, Resistance Welding, Resistance
Welding & Technology Welding Equipment, Welding and Brazing in
MEMBER SERVICES Aerospace, Friction Welding
EXECUTIVE OFFICE Dept. information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(480)
Associate Director Kevin Bulger.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . .(306)
Chelsea Steel.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . .(294) Director, Membership Brazing and Soldering, Methods of Weld In-
Nici Banks.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . .(270) spection, High-Energy Beam Welding, Welding
Program Administrator, National Awards Serves as a liaison between members and in Marine Construction, Welding of Machinery
Malisa Mercado.. [email protected] . . . . . .(293) AWS headquarters. and Equipment

Senior Manager, Sections and Student Jennifer Rosario.. [email protected] . . . . . . .(308)

HUMAN RESOURCES Chapters Oxyfuel Gas Welding and Cutting, Railroad
Director Darrill Gaschler.. [email protected] . . . . . . .(260) Welding, Robotics Welding, Thermal Spraying,
Alex Diaz.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(209) Welding Iron Castings, Welding Qualification

PUBLISHING & EDITORIAL Welding Handbook Editor

GOVERNMENT LIAISON SERVICES Dept. information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(275) Kathy Sinnes.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . .(255)
Hugh Webster.. [email protected]
Webster, Chamberlain & Bean, Washington, Welding Journal
D.C. (202) 785-9500; Fax: (202) 835-0243 Publisher/Editor AWS FOUNDATION INC.
Monitors federal issues of importance to the Annette Alonso.. [email protected] . . . . . . . .(299) aws.org/w/a/foundation
industry. General Information
Managing Editor (800/305) 443-9353, ext. 212, [email protected]
Kristin Campbell.. [email protected] . . . . .(257)
CERTIFICATION SERVICES Chairman, Board of Trustees
Dept. information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(273) Society News Editor William A. Rice.. [email protected]
Katie Pacheco.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . .(275)
Managing Director Executive Director, Foundation
Denny Smith.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . .(263) Section News Editor Monica Pfarr.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(461)
Cindy Weihl.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . .(256)
ACCREDITATION Associate Director, Foundation Services
Senior Manager Inspection Trends Editor John Douglass.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . .(212)
Emil Pagoaga.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . .(448) Carlos Guzman.. [email protected] . . . . . . .(348)
The AWS Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3)
charitable organization established to provide sup-
CONFERENCES & EVENTS STANDARDS DEVELOPMENT port for the educational and scientific endeavors of
Dept. information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(213) Dept. information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .(340) the American Welding Society. Promote the Founda-
tion’s work with your financial support.

CUSTOMER SERVICE & SUPPORT Director — Standards Development

Customer Service.. [email protected](280) Peter Portela.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . .(311)
Technical Committee Activities, Additive
SALES & CUSTOMER SERVICE Manufacturing, Structural Subcommittee on
Titanium
Senior Sales Executive, Corporate
Sandra Jorgensen.. [email protected] . . . .(254)
Director — International Activities
Andrew Davis.. [email protected] . . . . . . . . . . .(466)
CONVENTION AND EXPOSITIONS International Standards Activities, American
Director, Expositions Council of the International Institute of Welding
Matthew Rubin.. [email protected] . . . . . . . .(239)

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 51

Personnel Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:58 PM Page 52

PERSONNEL

Lockheed Martin Appoints board, which he joined in 2018. Prior president of en-
President and CEO to joining the company, Taiclet was gine services at
with American Tower Corp. since 2001. Pratt & Whitney
James D. Taiclet has been promoted He became CEO in 2003, followed by from 1996 to
to president and CEO of Lockheed chair and president in 2004. He guided 1999. He was also
Martin Corp., Bethesda, Md., a global the company’s transformation from a previously a con-
security and aerospace company. He primarily U.S. business to a global play- sultant at McKin-
succeeds Marillyn A. Hewson, who has er in its industry. Additionally, from sey & Co. Taiclet
served as chair, president, and CEO 1999 to 2001 he was president of Hon- began his career as
since 2014. Taiclet will continue to eywell Aerospace Services, a unit of a U.S. Air Force of-
serve as a member of the corporation’s Honeywell International, and vice ficer and pilot and
served a tour of
J. D. Taiclet
duty in the Gulf
War. He holds a
master’s degree in public affairs from
Princeton University, where he was
awarded a fellowship at the Woodrow
Wilson School, and is a distinguished
graduate of the United States Air Force
Academy with degrees in engineering
and international relations.

General Motors Promotes

Executive Vice President
and President
General Motors
(GM), Detroit,
Mich., the multi-
national automak-
er and distributor,
has appointed
Steve Carlisle as
executive vice
president and
president, North
America. He had
served as senior
S. Carlisle
vice president and
president, Cadil-
lac, since April 2018. With Carlisle’s
promotion, GM will have one sales,
service, and marketing leader across
its portfolio of automotive and con-
nected services brands in North Amer-
ica, including Chevrolet, Buick, GMC,
Cadillac, OnStar, ACDelco, and GM
Genuine Parts. He will report to GM
President Mark Reuss. Before joining
Cadillac, he was president and manag-
ing director, GM Canada, since No-
vember 2014. He began his GM career
in 1982 as an industrial engineering
co-op student at the Oshawa Truck
Assembly Plant. Over the course of
his career with the automaker, he has
held senior leadership positions, in-
cluding vice president, global product
planning and program management,

52 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

Personnel Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:59 PM Page 53

2010–2014; vice president, U.S. sales consumer market. His experience also gineering team in the design and de-
operations, 2010; and president and includes corporate management, busi- velopment of a complex IoT-enabled
managing director, Southeast Asia op- ness development, sales, and project product. Prior to Petcube, he held vari-
erations, 2007–2010. management. ous leadership positions within Dolby,
Amazon, and Netflix. He also holds
several patents across a variety of Sili-
Meridian Adhesives Group Industrial Scientific con Valley technology companies.
Adds Global Sales Director Welcomes Vice President
of Engineering
Meridian Adhe- Huntington Ingalls Announces
sives Group, a Saldy Antony Leadership Changes
manufacturer of has joined Indus-
adhesives and trial Scientific,
sealant technolo- Pittsburgh, Pa., a
gies, has hired provider in gas de-
Nicolas Schwarz as tection and con-
global sales direc- nected safety, as
tor of its electron- vice president of
ics division. He engineering. He
joins the company will be responsible
after a long tenure for leading the
N. Schwarz with John P. Kum- company’s engi-
mer (JPK) GmbH, S. Antony neering team
where he held the position of manag- while also devel-
J. Jones G. Fuller
ing director. Prior to his appointment oping and execut-
with JPK, he worked as director of ing the company’s global technology
R&D at Hartmann Group in Heiden- strategy. Antony most recently served Huntington Ingalls Industries,
heim, Germany, where he was tasked as vice president of engineering and Newport News, Va., a military ship-
with developing medical devices, com- product at Petcube, where he led a building company, has made changes
modities, and cosmetics for the global multinational and multifunctional en- to its leadership team at its Newport

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 53

Personnel Sept 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 4:59 PM Page 54

News Shipbuilding division. Julia the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) dur-
Jones was promoted to vice president ing its post-shakedown availability.
of manufacturing and facilities, where
she will be responsible for all manufac-
turing and facilities operations. Jones Obituary
has more than 22 years of shipbuilding
experience, including positions of re- John “Jack” Miaskowski
sponsibility in operations, planning,
manufacturing, nuclear support, and John “Jack” Miaskowski, of J. Miaskowski
corporate strategic planning. She has Strongsville, Ohio, passed away on
served as trades director for surface May 29. He was 82. Miaskowski was in tor at Cryogas International (now Gas-
preparation and treatment, and most advertising/sales for more than 50 world) from 1998 to 2014, where he
recently served as director of opera- years. Highly regarded in the welding worked as an advertising sales manag-
tions integration where she led trans- industry, he was a prominent fixture er. Afterward, he worked as an inde-
formation efforts to improve overall at every welding show and GAWDA pendent sales representative at Label
efficiency and effectiveness at the event. His career began at Penton Pub- Solutions, a provider in the industrial
shipyard. Gary Fuller was promoted to lishing, from 1973 to 1997, where he gas industry, until his passing. Addi-
vice president of fleet support pro- served as the Northeast regional ad- tionally, he was an active community
grams. He brings 38 years of experi- vertising sales manager for the pub- member. He was a member of the
ence in construction and overhaul, as lishing house’s two welding maga- American Welding Society from 1974
well as nuclear and radiological areas. zines, Welding Design & Fabrication and to 1998. He also served as past presi-
Prior to this role, Fuller served as di- The Welding Distribution. He went on dent and honorary District Governor
rector of test engineering in the Nu- to become the publisher of those ti- of Rotary. Miaskowski is survived by
clear Propulsion division. He has also tles. After 24 years, he moved on to his wife of 55 years, Kathleen; daugh-
served as chief test engineer, nuclear open his own advertising/sales compa- ters, Kathy, Lisa, and Maureen; and
superintendent, overhaul control engi- ny named Miaskowski Enterprises, grandchildren, Michael, Patrick, Brian,
neer, trades director, and nuclear con- which he ran for 14 years. At the same Carter, Callie, Max, Joe, Sam, and
struction director, most recently on time, he was an independent contrac- Jake. WJ

54 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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NEWS OF THE INDUSTRY

— continued from page 11

For the digital INTECH, TRUMPF made video topic dialogs on

the machines and technologies in advance. (Photo: TRUMPF)

er received the most feedback. Talks on the topics of electro-

mobility and the smart factory were also popular.

Castoro Sei pipelay activity during shore pull operations.

Crozier Welding Grows in Ohio to Support
36-in. pipes by Castoro Sei — Saipem’s semisubmersible Nearby Oil and Gas Industry
pipelaying vessel, the above water tie-in with the onshore
infrastructure in Albanian waters, as well as hydrotesting. A JobsOhio Grant will help Crozier Welding LLC, Coshoc-
Activities to connect the Italian and Albanian coasts be- ton, Ohio, to expand and improve logistical efficiencies. The
gan in mid-January 2020, with pipes welded and tested on company plans to invest $2.5 million and create 15–25 jobs.
board Castoro Sei, and then laid onto the bottom of the It will also relocate to a larger facility to improve logistical
Adriatic Sea in a continuous stretch, starting from the Ital- efficiencies and allow for company expansion.
ian shores toward Albania. Considering the COVID-19 pan- Crozier has grown from high-pressure pipeline welding
demic, the company and its contractor Saipem implemented and fabrication into being a key equipment supplier to some
a range of stringent measures to protect health and safety. of the country’s largest oil and gas producers.
“These are unprecedented times for all of us, and the en- “We continually strive to make a positive impact in the
ergy industry is engaged in a delicate balancing act: handling industry as well as our community. This investment posi-
operations on the ground with extreme care while continu- tions Crozier Welding for future growth and increased pro-
ing to provide the energy needed for our homes and busi- ductivity,” said Owner Bob Crozier.
nesses,” said John Haynes, the company’s project director. Ohio’s energy industry has attracted many shale invest-
“The TAP project is now more than 95% complete, and we ments, as the state sits atop the Utica and Marcellus shale
look forward to crossing the finish line by the end of this formations.
year.”
• Sciaky has announced a rise in demand for its Electron
Beam Additive Manufacturing (EBAM) and electron beam ANDRITZ to Supply Laser Welding Systems
welding solutions, despite the global COVID-19 pandemic. for Tailor-Welded Blanks to Toyota
The company has reported a dozen new projects, from high-
level research and development to production of prototype International technology group ANDRITZ, Graz, Austria,
and production parts, mostly tied to the aerospace industry. has received a package order from Toyota Motor North
Many of the EBAM metal 3D printing projects involve a
variety of high-value materials, such as titanium, Inconel,
niobium, copper-nickel, and stainless steel. The company’s
EBAM metal 3D printing solution is a wire-based direct en-
ergy deposition process.
• TRUMPF recently held its in-house trade show, INTECH,
digitally for the first time. Around 1600 visitors from 56
countries took part in the virtual trade show. “With a digital
INTECH, we were able to optimally meet the requirements of
our international customers in these Coronavirus times,”
said Reinhold Gross, managing director sales and services of
TRUMPF Werkzeugmaschinen GmbH + Co. KG.
The company set up an online platform for the show.
During topic dialogs, experts presented new machines and
technologies. In advance, visitors could register for program
items; during the event, they were able to address questions
live to experts. Videos for the new TruLaser Tube 3000 fiber A SOUTRAC II tailored blank laser welding system for curved
laser tube cutting machine and the TruPrint 2000 3D print- seams is shown. (© ANDRITZ)

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 55

NI SEPT 20.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 6:00 PM Page 56

America (TMNA), Plano, Tex., for the supply of three jointly Industry Notes
developed SOUTRAC II tailor-welded blank (TWB) laser
welding systems to be installed in its North American manu- • Lamar Institute of Technology, Beaumont, Tex., was
facturing plants. named one of 15 Best Trade Schools in Texas by the World
The TWB laser welding systems are suitable for curved Scholarship Forum. Ranked number eight, the institute
applications. The processing head it contains has been exclu- was chosen, according to the selection criteria, because
sively developed for TMNA. The TWB applications imple- “these programs are focused on benefits offered and career
mented will support Toyota’s New Global Architecture. The outlook. We also considered the quality of education, aver-
fully automated production system will also be capable of in- age earnings of graduates, accreditation, and several other
tegrating automatic guided vehicles that will connect plant relevant factors.” Among its offerings is a welding degree.
logistics systems with warehouse/production equipment.
The new core piece incorporates 15 axes in combination • Keen Compressed Gas Co., Wilmington, Del., recently
with a welding shuttle concept and will be implemented in announced its receipt of ISO 17025:2017 accreditation
the new generation of the SOUTRAC II welding system. from Perry Johnson Laboratory Accreditation Inc. In
2018, the company began construction on a new, automat-
ed $6 million fill plant; completed in the fall of 2019, it’s
ESAB Introduces GCE Specialty Gas and now backed by the ISO accreditation.
Valve Product Lines in North America, • United Performance Metals has installed a new, 8-kW
Opens Texas Configuration Center fiber laser in the company’s Cincinnati, Ohio, headquar-
ters. United now operates four laser cutting machines in its
Ohio laser center: two fiber lasers and two CO2 lasers.

• In San Diego, Calif., a fundraising effort by GovX, the on-

line shopping site exclusively for current/former military and
first responders, has raised more than $7000 for Workshops
for Warriors, a school providing hands-on training, STEM
educational programs, and opportunities to earn third-party
credentials that enable veterans/transitioning service mem-
bers to be placed into careers at no additional cost.

• In 2019, Postle Industries and Hardface Technologies,

Cleveland, Ohio, celebrated its 50th anniversary and in hon-
or of the milestone, has given its company logo an upgraded,
new look. In business since 1969 with its Postalloy® Hard-
facing and Hardbanding Products, a range of welding alloys
to protect equipment and components from wear caused
Recently, ESAB announced North American distributors and by abrasion, impact, metal-to-metal friction, and more are
end-users have full access to the GCE Druva specialty gas offered.
equipment and GCE Valves product lines.
• Bug-O Systems, Canonsburg, Pa., is launching a commu-
nication system accessed at bugo.com. Its Live Support Pro-
Since completing the acquisition of Gas Control Equip- gram has three areas of focus — distributor/dealer product
ment (GCE) in October 2018, ESAB Welding & Cutting support, send and show application solutions, and field fix
Products, Annapolis Junction, Md., has focused on aligning user assistance. Webinars will also allow offering customers
its global product offerings and innovations into four areas: timely guidance for all cutting and welding products. WJ
cutting and welding, healthcare, specialty gas equipment,
and cylinder valves. Furthering the global integration, the
company has announced North American distributors and
end-users have full access to the GCE Druva® specialty gas
equipment and GCE Valves product lines.
In addition, to support the move, ESAB revealed the com-
pletion of a dedicated Configuration Center at its Denton,
Tex., facility. The center, which serves both the GCE and Vic-
tor® brands, is isolated from the manufacturing areas for
Do You Have Some
Victor industrial products, which are also part of the compa- News to Tell Us?
ny portfolio.
“The Configuration Center provides build-to-order serv- If you have a news item that might interest Welding
Journal readers, send it to the following address:
ices for specialty gas equipment products in a specially de-
signed clean-room environment,” said Curt Rocha, global Welding Journal Dept., Attn: Kristin Campbell
product and business director gas equipment, ESAB. “We 8669 NW 36 St., #130
have also added GCE-dedicated engineering, applications, Miami, FL 33166
assembly, and sales support teams to ensure ‘best-in-class’ Items can also be sent by email to [email protected].
equipment solutions and quick turnaround.”

56 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

P&P – Sept. 2020.qxp_Layout 1 8/6/20 7:29 PM Page 57

PRODUCT & PRINT Flux Cored Welding Wire

SPOTLIGHT Boosts Crack Resistance
— continued from page 21

The Cryo-Shield Ni9, a Ni-Cr-Mo

area 150% larger than its predeces- alloy flux cored welding wire, enhances features ISO 230-2 machinery stan-
sors. This combination allows users to crack resistance to enable all-position dard specifications and the option of a
weld larger parts, form deeper weld welding of 9% Ni steel storage tanks 2- or 4-kW laser. The machine is easy
seams, and achieve higher feed rates, with 100% CO2 shielding gas. This to set up and requires minimal main-
allowing parts to be produced faster. modified 625-type welding wire fea- tenance. It comes with a two-year war-
The laser system also features an intel- tures mechanical properties similar to ranty and free phone support for life.
ligent image-processing system that Hastelloy® ENiMo-13 flux cored wires,
automatically corrects the laser beam but at a lower purchase price because Koike Aronson Ransome
if the part to be welded is out of align- of its modified formula. Its typical as- koike.com
ment. This makes the process more re- welded mechanical properties are a (800) 252-5232
liable and reduces scrap. The laser sys- yield strength of 440 MPa, a tensile
tem is suitable for complex medical de- strength of 730 MPa, an elongation of
vices, such as endoscopes. It also 44%, and a Charpy impact value of 65 Report Analyzes the Global
works with common metals, including
mild steel, stainless steel, copper, alu-
J at –196ºC. The welding wire also Shielding Gas Market
lowers operating cost through its use
minum, and titanium. of 100% CO2 shielding gas instead of Global Welding Gas/Shielding Gas
an argon blend. The welding wire car- Market estimates this industry will
TRUMPF
trumpf.com ries approvals from the following clas- reach $2214.6 million by 2026, from
+49 7156 3030 sification societies: American Bureau 2139.8 million in 2020, at a compound
of Shipping, Bureau Veritas, DNV GL, annual growth rate of 3.2%. The 110-
Korean Register, Lloyd’s Register, and page report includes the production,
China Classification Society. It comes revenue, price, market share, and
Website Displays Nearly 500 in 1.2 mm diameter on 300-mm wire growth rate of each type of welding/
Weld Camera Videos baskets or plastic spools and is deliv- shielding gas according to the follow-
ered in vacuum-seal foil packaging ing categories: argon, carbon dioxide,
The website offers a library of nearly that provides moisture absorption. oxygen, hydrogen, and others. It fo-
500 videos on weld processes that have cuses on the status and outlook for
not been enhanced. Taken with the ESAB Welding & Cutting Products major applications/end users, con-
company’s weld cameras, the library esab.com sumption (sales), market share, and
shows videos of gas metal arc, gas tung- (800) 372-2123 growth rate for metal manufacturing,
sten arc, shielded metal arc, laser, elec- construction, energy, and aerospace
tron beam, and plasma welding applica- applications. The report also looks at
tions on various substrate materials in
both monochrome and color. The new Laser Cutting Machine Works the major players in this industry, in-
with a Variety of Metals cluding Air Products and Chemicals
website also features a more intuitive Inc., The Linde Group, Praxair Inc.,
process to help visitors decide which Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp., and Air
camera system best fits their needs, in- The FiberPro comes equipped with
the Flashcut Pro Controller software Liquide SA. It concludes with informa-
cluding blog posts and other content tion on the present and future effects
describing how the company’s products to efficiently cut materials like brass,
copper, stainless steel, mild steel, and of COVID-19 on the shielding gas
are used across various industries. Oth- market.
er highlights of the website include a di- aluminum. For precise and consistent
rect link to the company’s customer cuts, the machine comes standard
Industry Research
support center, an enhanced blog re- with a Precitec cutting head, as well as
industryresearch.biz
source page, and a detailed listing of a direct-drive helical rack and pinion. (424) 253-0807
the company’s global partners. Boasting a Class 1 safety rating, it also
contains a viewing glass to provide the
Xiris Automation Inc. operator with optimal protection
xiris.com while he or she is watching the ma-
(905) 331-6660 chine during cutting. Additionally, it

SEPTEMBER 2020 / WELDING JOURNAL 57

Classifieds September 2020 Layout.qxp_Layout 1 8/10/20 3:42 PM Page 58

CLASSIFIEDS

FOR SALE OR RENT

JOE FULLER LLC

We manufacture tank turning rolls
3-ton through 120-ton rolls
joefuller.com

email: [email protected]
Phone: (979) 277-8343
Fax: (281) 290-6184
Our products are made in the USA

ADVERTISER INDEX
AWS Certification 5 Gullco International 53
aws.org/cwi_endorsements (800) 443-9353 [email protected] (440) 439-8333

AWS Conferences 38 Harris Products 31

aws.org/pipe2020 (800) 443-9353 harrisproductsgroup.com (800) 733 4043

Hypertherm 21
AWS Foundation 52
visit.hypertherm.com/powermaxversatility (800) 737-2978
aws.org/workforcegrant (800) 443-9353
Liburdi 8
AWS Membership 19 liburdi.com (800) 991-2100
aws.org/joinaws (800) 443-9353
Lincoln Electric OBC
Arcos IBC lincolnelectric.com (888) 935-3877
arcos.us (800) 233-8460
Red-D-Arc 10
Camfil 2 reddarc.com (866) 733-3272
campfilapc.com (800) 479-6801
RPB Safety 1
Cor-met Inc. 27 rpbsafety.com (866) 494-4599
cor-met.com (800) 848-2719
RWMA 54
aws.org/rwma (305) 443-935 ext. 220
Diamond Ground 15
diamondground.com (805) 498-3837 Select-Arc IFC
select-arc.com (800) 341-5215
Fischer Engineering 8
fischerengr.com (937) 754-1750 SK Brazing 20
skbrazing.com 82 31-404-8020
Flexovit USA 16
flexovitabrasives.com (800) 689-3539 Triangle Engineering 10
trieng.com (781) 878-1500
Gal Gage Co. 11
galgage.com (269) 465-5750 voestalpine Bohler Welding USA Inc. 9
voestalpine.com/welding (800) 527-0791
Gedik Welding 13
gedikwelding.com (201) 679-5551 Weld Engineering 17
weldengineering.com (508) 842-2224
Gentec/Genstar 14
gentec.com (909) 606-2726 Welder Training & Testing 53
wtti.com (800) 223-9884

58 WELDING JOURNAL / SEPTEMBER 2020

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WELDING RESEARCH
SUPPLEMENT TO THE WELDING JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 2020
Sponsored by the American Welding Society

Deep Learning-Based Detection of Penetration

from Weld Pool Reflection Images
An innovative approach was achived to identify the weld penetration state
using a convolutional neural network

BY C. LI, Q. WANG, W. JIAO, M. JOHNSON, AND Y. M. ZHANG

ly fatigue and service life of the welded structure. Therefore,

ABSTRACT it is important to estimate the weld joint penetration in real
time as an intermediate step to controlling the penetration
An innovative method was proposed to determine weld in a desired state. The penetration state is determined by
joint penetration using machine learning techniques. In our the depth and bottom surface of the weld pool, which are
approach, the dot-structured laser images reflected from
hidden from view and cannot be monitored directly in prac-
an oscillating weld pool surface were captured.
Experienced welders typically evaluate the weld tical applications. Therefore, researchers have been trying to
penetration status based on this reflected laser pattern. To detect weld joint penetration using available characteristic
overcome the challenges in identifying features and accu- information from the welding process.
rately processing the images using conventional machine The abrupt transition of the weld pool’s natural oscilla-
vision algorithms, we proposed the use the raw images tion frequency from incomplete joint penetration to com-
without any processing as the input to a convolutional neu- plete joint penetration has been applied to monitor and con-
ral network (CNN). The labels needed to train the CNN were trol the weld joint penetration by Xiao and Ouden (Refs. 1,
the measured weld penetration states, obtained from the 2). Chen et al. found the depth of joint penetration was re-
images on the backside of the workpiece as a set of lated to the infrared thermal images of the weld pool cap-
discrete weld penetration categories. The raw data, images,
and penetration state were generated from extensive
tured by infrared cameras, which were used for characteriz-
experiments using an automated robotic gas tungsten arc ing the surface temperature distribution of the weld pool
welding process. Data augmentation was performed to en- (Refs. 3–5). Reflected ultrasonic waves have also been used
hance the robustness of the trained network, which led to to determine and control weld joint penetration in real time
270,000 training examples, 45,000 validation examples, and (Refs. 6, 7).
45,000 test examples. A six-layer convolutional neural net- Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have
work trained with a modified mini-batch gradient descent become the prevalent method for solving computer vision
method led to a final testing accuracy of 90.7%. A voting problems. As a specialized kind of neural networks to
mechanism based on three continuous images increased process grid‐like topology data, CNNs are inspired by the
the classification accuracy to 97.6%. study of a monkey’s visual cortex (Refs. 20, 21). LeCun et
al. proposed the architecture of modern CNNs (Ref. 22)
KEYWORDS and developed a five‐layer CNN (LeCun‐5), including two
convolutional layers, two pooling layers, and one fully con-
• Weld Pool • Pool Oscillation • Machine Learning nected layer, which will be trained by the back propagation
• Deep Learning • Penetration •Machine Vision optimization algorithm (Ref. 23).
• Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) • Image In this modern CNN architecture, convolutional layers are
used to process raw pixels and extract features automatically;
and fully connected layers are used to do high‐level reasoning
Introduction based on the features extracted. Inspired by the successful ap-
plication of LeNet‐5 in classifying handwritten digits, deeper
Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) is one of the most and more ingenious CNNs have been developed to deal with
widely used welding processes in industrial manufacturing, more complex computer vision tasks. In 2012, AlexNet won
especially for critical applications, such as pressure vessels the Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge with a top five
and aerospace. Benefits of GTAW include its stability and test error rate of 15.3%, compared to 26.2% achieved by the
high‐quality weld joints. In these critical applications, weld second‐best entry using non‐CNNs (Ref. 24). After the success
joint penetration is an important criterion to judge weld of AlexNet, additional work has been done to improve the per-
joint integrity, which affects mechanical properties especial- formance of CNNs for image classification, object detection,

https://doi.org/10.29391/2020.99.022

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Table 1 — Weld Joint Penetration Label

Area (px) Label

650–950 0
950–1350 1
1350–1650 2
1650–1950 3
1950–2250 4
2250–2500 5

Sl (i, j, k)  m, n Il–1(i  m, j  n)Kkl(m, n) (1)

where Sl is the calculated value after convolutional layers; 𝑖, 𝑗

indicates the position; Il is 𝑙th layer; and Kkl is the 𝑘th kernel
used in 𝑙th layer.
Fig. 1 — Experimental setup of the weld pool and weld joint A non‐linear activation function will take in the convoluted
penetration system. value to produce the next layer to extract the non-linear
feature:
and tracking, such as R‐CNN (Refs. 25–27), ZFNet (Ref. 28),
VGGNet (Ref. 29), GAN (Ref. 30), GoogLeNet (Ref. 31), and Il (i, j, k)  a (Sl (i, j, k)) (2)
ResNet (Ref. 32). In addition, CNNs have also been successful-
ly applied in other areas such as speech processing (Refs. 33,
34) and natural language processing (Refs. 35, 36).The analy- where a is the activation function.
sis suggests that the ability of CNNs to directly process raw Typical activation functions are sigmoid, tanh, and ReLU
images avoids the problems of manual selection and extraction (Refs. 39, 40). To decrease complexity and increase robust-
of features from the images. ness of CNNs, pooling layers follow the convolutional layers.
This paper presents an effective CNN‐based method to de- In pooling layers, a region of data from the last layer is com-
tect weld joint penetration from the raw reflected dot‐struc- pressed into one value using predefined pooling methods
tured laser pattern of a weld pool. A weld pool sensing system such as average pooling (Ref. 22), max pooling (Ref. 41), Lp
was designed and built to capture reflected dot‐structured pooling (Ref. 42), and stochastic pooling (Ref. 43):
laser patterns and corresponding backside images of the joints
simultaneously. Data augmentation was then performed to ex-
pand the size of the raw dataset, generating the following Il (i, j, k)  pool (Il–1 (m, n, k)),  (m, n)  Rij (3)
three independent datasets: training data, validation data, and
test data. A six‐layer convolution neural network, including
two convolutional layers, two pooling layers, one fully connect- where Rij is the local neighborhood around location (i, j).
ed layer, and one regression layer, was trained taking the raw After convolutional and pooling layers, traditional fully
reflected laser patterns as data and weld penetration states as connected layers are applied. In the fully connected layers,
labels and using the revised mini‐batch gradient descent grid‐like topology data in the previous layer is reshaped into
method. The final test showed the prediction accuracy of a a column vector, which is premultiplied by a weight matrix
neural network is 90.7%. Wl and added with a bias term Bl :
This paper is organized as follows: Section I introduces the
principles of CNNs; Section II describes the dataset building Il  Wl Il–1 Bl (4)
process; Section III presents the network architecture, hyper .
parameters, training process of the proposed model, testing
results, and discussion; and Section IV summarizes this paper
and draws conclusions. The classified labels are calculated using forward‐
propagation‐based architecture and the parameters include
kernels, weights, and biases that are denoted by  in CNNs.
I. Principle of Proposed Method The average loss L is defined based on the difference be-
tween classified and true labels:
The basic components and framework of CNNs are similar
across domain applications. Typically, the convolution opera-
tion is used in place of matrix multiplication in at least one of
the network layers (Ref. 37). The network structure typically
L =
N n=1 (

l ; y(n) , o(n)
1 N
) ( 5)
includes convolutional layers, pooling layers, and fully con-
nected layers (Ref. 38). In convolutional layers, small‐sized where y(n) is the the true label and o(n) is the predicted label.
kernels flow across previous layers and operate via a dot prod- Typical loss functions ℓ include squared error, Hinge loss
uct with the previous layer by (Ref. 44), and cross‐entropy loss (Ref. 37). The CNNs are

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A B

Fig. 2 — Typical images in experiments: A — From camera 1; B — from camera 2.

A B

Fig. 3 — Weld joint penetration: A — Incomplete joint penetration; B — complete joint penetration.

trained using the stochastic gradient descent optimization ms. The weld pool oscillated and an image was captured,
technique. In our approach, the parameter updating rule one image per pulsing cycle, at 2 ms of the base current to
was mini‐batch stochastic gradient descent (mini‐batch ensure that the arc had become darker. A weld pool sensing
SGD), as shown in Equation 6: system had been designed and established based on the ex-
periment platform proposed in the literature (Ref. 15). As
 t+1 =  t - t   L( t; y(i:i+n), o(i:i+n)) (6) shown in Fig. 1, a 650‐nm‐wavelength 19 × 19 dot-matrix
structured laser pattern was projected onto the weld pool
where t is the learning rate and n is the mini‐batch size. The surface at 30 deg from horizontal. On the other side, the
method used to determine how the parameters are changed, reflected laser light was collected by a screen placed on the
from  t to  t+1 toward the ones that can minimize Equa- path of the reflected laser pattern. A Point Grey
tion 5, in neural networks is called optimizer. When using GZL‐CL‐22C5M‐C high‐speed camera (camera 1 in Fig. 1)
Equation 6 to change the parameters, the optimizer is to with a 650-nm center wavelength band‐pass optical filter
adaptively adjust the learning rate t based on the computed captured the images from the screen at a speed of 1000
gradient to accelerate the training processes or achieve bet- fps. At each base current period, the high‐speed camera
ter prediction performance.. Widely used optimizers include captured three images of the weld pool surface to use as
momentum (Ref. 45), Adagrad (Ref. 46), Adadelta (Ref. 47), the raw data of the neural networks. In addition, a Point
and Adam (Ref. 48) that have been developed and became Grey FL3‐FW‐03S1C with no optical filter(camera 2 in Fig.
the benchmark works in training neural networks. 1) captured one image of the backside of the weld bead at
the start of the base current period, saved in 8‐bit black-
and-white format. Figure 2A shows a typical reflected laser
II. System Setup and Dataset Building pattern image captured by camera 1 and used as input into
our model. During the welding process, the weld pool sur-
Weld Pool and Weld Joint Penetration Sensing System face was not even, which caused the reflected laser pattern
to be irregular. As discussed, all the information regarding
In our experiments, autogenous, pulsed GTAW spot the backside weld penetration were contained in that im-
welds were conducted on a 0.125-in.-thick 304 stainless age and used as the input data to the convolutional neural
steel. In each pulsing period, the peak current was applied network. Figure 2B is a typical image captured by camera 2
at 60 A for 47 ms and followed by a 20-A base current for 3 and used to identify weld penetration state labels after

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A B Table 2 — Data Augmentation Summary

Label Number of Raw Images Number of Images

after Augmentation
0 457 59,868
1 495 64,846
2 540 70,696
3 570 74,101
4 626 70,739
D C 5 862 87,063

Data Augmentation

The original dataset of reflected laser patterns and weld

penetration states included 3540 examples. This is insuffi-
cient to train CNNs, leading to overfitting as the number of
parameters is often tens of millions or more. In Pinto et al.
Fig. 4 — Weld joint penetration identification process: A — Raw (Ref. 49), a simple V1-like model had been built, trained,
image; B — ROI; C — binarized image; D — light area calculation. and tested on this small dataset. However, when variations
such as position changes or different sizes were added to the
some simple image processing, as discussed in detail in the test set, the performance degraded dramatically. In this pa-
next section. More than 300 welding experiments have per, a label-preserving data augmentation process was per-
been run for this application, and 3540 image pairs have formed to increase the size of the dataset. The approach was
been collected as our raw data set. similar to that in Ref. 24 where cropping original images
into several patches was found to be an effective method for
Weld Joint Penetration Labels Identification data augmentation (Ref. 50) and affine transformations,
such as rotation and scaling for enlarging datasets.
As shown in Fig. 3, there are two kinds of weld joint pen- Considering the fact that skilled welders are able to deter-
etration, complete joint penetration and incomplete joint mine weld penetration states at different positions, dis-
penetration, depending on the geometry sizes of the weld tances, and orientations, the three geometric transforma-
pool and workpieces. The degree of welding penetration tions of shifting, scaling, and rotation were used for trans-
state is characterized as either the width b or the area  of forming the raw input images. The data augmentation re-
the backside of the weld, which is zero for the case of non- sults are summarized in Table 2.
penetration in A and non‐zero for the case of full penetra- To make sure the testing results of the neural networks
tion in B. Compared with using area, choosing width results are accurate and will generalize, the training data set, valida-
in another problem: how to define the width for an irregular tion set, and test set must be completely separate. To accom-
shape. A better approach is to measure the smallest and plish this, we randomly partitioned the data into 75% train-
biggest measures of the pool and then take the average, but ing, 12.5% validation, and 12.5% test sets, balancing the
that requires an extra process. Based on this idea, the light number of examples from each label category. This resulted
area of the backside of the weld bead from camera 2 was in a training set, which contained 270,000 images; a valida-
used to identify the welding penetration state. The whole tion set, which contained 45,000 images; and a test set,
process is shown in Fig. 4. Initially, the region of interest which contained 45,000 images being created.
(ROI) was selected around the weld bead to decrease calcula-
tion burden. A binary operation was performed with a III. Model Training
threshold of 110 to filter out pixels that characterize un-
melted base metal. The pixels kept can be considered as Architecture
characterizations of the weld bead. Then, according to the
accumulated number of pixels kept, weld penetration states Convolutional neural networks are used for many differ-
were identified and assigned labels (Table 1). The primary ent computer vision tasks. For simple tasks, such as image
goal is to discriminate between no penetration, incomplete classification, five to ten layers may be enough (Refs. 23,
joint penetration, and complete joint penetration of the 24). However, if the task is complex, such as image segmen-
weld; however, to add some additional differentiation, we tation or object detection, the neural network often con-
used six different levels of penetration for these experi- tains more than ten layers. Examples include GoogLeNet
ments. Throughout the experiments, all the lighting condi- (Ref. 1) with 22 layers and VGG‐16 (Ref. 29) with 16 layers.
tions and camera settings remained the same. The reason Using deeper CNNs for simple tasks is not recommended
for the threshold being set to 110 was to eliminate the fac- because they require longer training time and increase the
tors lighting condition, for example, that may affect the risk of overfitting. Details of the network architecture have
backside light area. Preliminary experiments were done to to be designed to meet the requirements from each individ-
determine the best threshold setting. ual task. In our paper, a six‐layer CNN architecture, includ-

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Fig. 5 — Architecture of proposed CNN.

Table 3 — Parameters Used in Proposed CNN

Layers Number of Parameters

Convolutional–1 (5  5  1)  75 = 1950
Pooling–1 (1  1)  75 = 150
Convolutional–2 (75  5  5  1)  50 = 93,800
Pooling–2 (1  1)  50 = 100
Fully connected 2700  500  500 = 1,350,500
Softmax regression 500  6  6 = 3006
Total 1,449,506

ing two convolutional layers, two max‐pooling layers, one

fully connected layer, and one softmax regression layer, had
been selected based on preliminary experimentation using
the validation set data. As shown in Fig. 5, 75 kernels with
a size of 5 × 5 were used in the first convolutional layer. A 2
× 2 max‐pooling layer followed the first convolutional layer.
Adding a max‐pooling layer enhanced the robustness of the
position variance and significantly reduced the computa- Fig. 6 — Errors in the training process.
tional cost of the neural network. The second convolutional
layer contained 50 kernels with a size of 5 × 5 followed by a and biases were set to zero. We used a modified Xavier ini-
2 × 2 max pooling. All convolution operations were imple- tialization (Refs. 29, 40) rather than full Xavier initialization
mented without adding. Then, 50 × 9 × 6 data was reshaped (Ref. 52) to help address convergence difficulties. The de-
to a column vector with a length of 2700 and followed with fault learning rate created some initial saddle points, so the
a fully connected layer of 500 neurons. Lastly, a softmax re- initialization was reduced further by 0.1. The result was a
gression layer was used to calculate the predicted label validation set error rate of 22.48%, which was higher than
ranging from zero to five. the Gaussian initialization with a 22.08% validation error
Currently, many CNNs use the rectified linear unit rate on the same validation dataset.
(ReLU) function as an activation function. Compared with The optimizer was a revised mini‐batch gradient de-
traditional activation functions, such as tanh and sigmoid, scent with a mini‐batch size of 600. As a tradeoff of batch
ReLU often converges faster (Ref. 24) and achieves better gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent,
performance (Ref. 39, 51). Although tanh and ReLU mini‐batch gradient descent took a small size of training
achieved similar validation set performance in our experi- samples each time to calculate the negative gradient direc-
ments, we chose to use ReLU as the activation function for tion and adjusted parameters to minimize the cost func-
faster convergence and lower risk of saturation. The number tion. Although the mini‐batch gradient descent balanced
of parameters used in this CNN is summarized in Table 3. the variance of convergence and computation efficiency,
the speed of convergence was relatively slow. Thus, a mo-
Training mentum term was added to speed up the convergence
speed (Ref. 53). Learning rate annealing was used to bal-
In our experiments, all weights were initialized using a ance the training time and the training accuracy. The ini-
Gaussian distribution with a zero mean and 0.01 variance, tial learning rate t was 0.01 in our experiments, decreas-

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ing by half if the validation error stopped decreasing for Long term, the goal of this work is to support the imple-
three epochs. Adaptive moment estimation (Adam) (Ref. mentation of this system to control weld joint penetration
48) has become prevalent in recent CNNs. Combining the in an industrial production line setting.
advantages of the RMSProp (Ref. 54) and the AdaGrad
(Ref. 46) methods, this designed adaptive learning rates
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DOI: 10.1016/j.neunet.2014.08.005 tems, pp. 657–665.
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Effects of Filler Wire Intervention on Gas

Tungsten Arc: Part I — Mechanism
A novel sensing method of detecting voltage signals between a filler wire
and tungsten electrode/workpiece was proposed

BY S. ZOU, Z. WANG, S. HU, G. ZHAO, W. WANG, AND Y. CHEN

variation. This situation requires the development of on-line

ABSTRACT monitoring and control technologies for weld quality.
The geometry of the weld pool is closely related to the real-
For gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), the effects of filler time welding state and largely determines the formation of
wire on the GTA are worth being clarified, which will help welds after solidification. Therefore, the accurate extraction of
deepen the understanding of arc characteristics and in-
weld pool geometry will help to understand and then monitor
spire new ideas for the real-time monitoring of weld quality.
To this end, this work proposed a novel sensing method of the dynamic welding process, and it will also contribute to pro-
detecting probe voltages (i.e., the voltage signals between a viding useful feedback for the real-time control of weld quality.
filler wire and tungsten electrode/workpiece). Based on this The extraction of weld pool geometry is often based on visual
method, in this first part of the work, a tungsten probe was sensing techniques. Chen et al. used passive visual sensing to
used to replace the filler wire and to interact with the arc in extract the distance between the tungsten electrode tip and its
the specific experiments to elucidate the static and dy- reversed reflection in the weld pool under suitable exposure
namic interaction mechanisms between the GTA and filler conditions, to characterize the height of the weld pool surface
wire. The results showed that the filler wire intervention de- (its concavity/convexity) (Ref. 1). Fan et al. developed a three-
flects the arc to various degrees and will change the volt- way passive visual sensing system to simultaneously detect the
age signals. As a metal conductor, the filler wire will in-
crease the arc voltage by increasing the average electric
weld pool geometry from both sides of the workpiece (Ref. 2).
field strength. However, its effects on the different areas of Taking laser as an auxiliary light source, Zhang and Song et al.
the arc are not always consistent, which makes the change reconstructed the weld pool by virtue of the designed 3D visu-
trend of the probe voltages not always the same. Moreover, al sensing system (Refs. 3–5), and based on this system, Liu
due to thermal inertia, the probe voltage does not strictly and Dong et al. have extracted the geometric parameters of the
change synchronously with the arc voltage under the dy- 3D weld pool for modeling of weld-quality control (Refs. 6, 7).
namic disturbance. This work lays a theoretical foundation In addition to the weld pool geometry, the dynamic be-
for monitoring the stability of the GTAW process. haviors of the weld pool have also received much attention.
During autogenous GTAW, the weld pool is excited to oscil-
late by pulse current. The frequency and amplitude of weld
KEYWORDS pool oscillation can be used to describe the weld penetration
• Arc Characteristics • Arc Voltage • Arc Sensing status because both of them will change as the volume of
• Gas Tungsten Arc (GTA) • Filler Wire • Gas Tungsten Arc the weld pool changes. When the solid restraint at the bot-
Welding (GTAW) tom of the weld pool disappears, the weld pool will have a
sudden subsidence, and its oscillation frequency and ampli-
tude will be abruptly changed accordingly. This abrupt
Introduction change can be used to characterize the critical complete
joint penetration status. These dynamic behaviors of the
Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) is one of the precision weld pool can be monitored by the arc voltage (Refs. 8–11)
welding techniques for obtaining high-quality weldments. It or the evolution of the laser pattern reflected from the weld
can weld a variety of industrial structural metals and is pool surface in the structured-laser visual sensing system
widely used in aerospace, atomic energy, pressure vessels, (Refs. 12–14).
and other industrial fields. Due to its wide application, the Arc sound is also a noteworthy information source that
quality assurance of GTAW is particularly important. How- can reflect the weld pool status. It can be roughly considered
ever, even with optimized welding parameters, it is still dif- that the arc sound signal in pulsed GTAW is determined by
ficult to guarantee weld quality with automated GTAW in the arc sound source and the modulating arc sound channel.
complex environments because of its uncertainty and time The sound source is generated from the arc energy change,

https://doi.org/10.29391/2020.99.023

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Fig. 1 — Schematic diagram of the sensing principle.

and the sound channel can be considered as a cavity covered The purpose of this work is to clarify the effects of the
by the shielding gas atmosphere (Refs. 15–17). According to filler wire intervention on the GTA. For this purpose, a
Lv et al. (Refs. 16, 17), statistical characteristics of the arc novel sensing method of detecting the probe voltages (i.e.,
sound in time domain can be used to distinguish different the voltage signals between the filler wire and tungsten elec-
penetration statuses due to the difference in the arc energy, trode/workpiece) was proposed. Moreover, this work was
and the different penetration statuses will also result in dif- split into two parts for elaboration. This first part aims at
ferent formant distribution of the sound channel because of expounding the principal interaction mechanisms between
the change in the sound channel state (e.g., an excessively the GTA and filler wire, and the second part will discuss the
penetrated weld pool will destroy the sound channel). Zhang behaviors of liquid droplets. In the first part, to simplify the
et al. used the Fisher distance and principal component study, a tungsten probe was used to replace the filler wire
analysis to select the frequency components reflecting the and to interact with the arc through specific experiments.
weld penetration status in pulsed GTAW, then established a This work helped to enhance the understanding of electrical
classification model and successfully distinguished the dif- arc characteristics and laid the foundation for on-line moni-
ferent weld penetration statuses (Ref. 18). toring and control of the GTAW quality when the filler wire
As mentioned above, so much valuable and potential infor- was employed.
mation has been continuously mined, the relevant mecha-
nisms have been deeply explained, and various sensing meth- Sensing Methodology
ods have been proposed to serve on-line monitoring and con-
trol of GTAW quality. However, the reported studies in the aca- In the autogenous GTAW process, electrical arc is estab-
demic field have focused more on autogenous GTAW than lished between the nonconsumable tungsten electrode tip
GTAW with filler wire. Furthermore, researchers have devoted and liquid weld pool surface. Weld pool behaviors will
more attention to studies on weld pool status, often ignoring change arc length and thus change arc voltage (U, i.e., the
the effect of the liquid metal generated from the filler wire (if voltage between the tungsten electrode and the workpiece).
it is employed) on the process. Although the employment of When the filler wire is introduced into the GTA, the feeding
the filler wire will expand the application of GTAW, it will also motion of the filler wire, the resulting metal transfer, and
interfere with the GTA and impact the extraction of character- the pendant liquid droplets that oscillate at the end of the
istic information about the weld pool (e.g., disturbing its regu- filler wire will affect the arc, and the filler wire itself as a
lar oscillation frequency under pulse current), which is not suspended electrical conductor will also become an interfer-
conducive to the welding process stability and monitoring of ence. The resultant interference signals will be coupled into
the weld pool. Yudodibroto et al. studied the effects of filler the arc voltage, thereby obscuring the characteristic signals
wire on weld pool oscillation in GTAW and thought the oscilla- contained in the arc voltage that reflect the weld pool be-
tion frequency could still be measured to reflect the weld pene- haviors. It is difficult to distinguish their respective signal
tration status under the mode of uninterrupted metal transfer components and to clarify the interaction mechanisms be-
(Ref. 19), but the further study has not been reported yet; for tween the filler wire and arc plasma with the arc voltage
instance, the interaction mechanisms between the filler wire alone. Therefore, it may be possible to consider introducing
and GTA are still unclear. additional sensing signals to help explain the relevant con-

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Fig. 2 — Experimental apparatus.

cerns. When U is measured to reflect the overall electrical char-

Electrical arc is a self-sustaining discharge plasma whose acteristics of GTA, Upc or Upa can be additionally used to re-
electrical characteristics can be diagnosed by immersing flect the local electrical characteristics of different regions of
metal probes (Ref. 20). Active (Ref. 21) or passive (Ref. 22) the GTA. Moreover, since the filler wire directly becomes a
probe-sensing methods have also been used to monitor the signal acquisition terminal, the probe voltages may be more
keyhole process in plasma arc welding. Inspired by these, the suitable for characterizing the dynamic behaviors of the
filler wire can be regarded as a ready-made probe immersed droplet at the end of the filler wire.
in the arc atmosphere of GTAW, and probe voltages can be
readily measured to provide more sensing information.
Here, two probe voltages are detected, that is, the voltage
Experimental System and Design
between probe and tungsten electrode and the voltage be-
tween probe and workpiece, which are denoted as Upc and Experimental System
Upa, respectively. It can be roughly thought that these two
probe voltages divide the arc voltage into upper and lower The experimental system mainly consisted of the follow-
parts. In addition to the voltage drop of the upper or lower ing three parts: welding system, high-speed camera system,
arc column region (denoted as Uu and Ul, respectively), these and multichannel electrical signal acquisition system. The
two probe voltages also contain the voltage drop of the cath- welding system was composed of a Fronius MagicWave 4000
ode region (Uc) and the voltage drop of the anode region GTAW power source (constant current mode), welding
(Ua), respectively. torch, and welding workbench. The Acuteye high-speed
The number of positive and negative charges per unit camera system equipped with optical dimmers and filters
volume at every moment is considered to be approximately was used to provide auxiliary visual information about the
equal in the GTA plasma, so the arc plasma is quasielectric- arc shape. For the electrical signal acquisition system, elec-
ally neutral. After the filler wire is introduced, electrons trical signals of interest were measured by Hall sensors and
lighter than the positive ions will fly out of the arc plasma transmitted to a computer via a USB-4711A data acquisition
around the filler wire and flow to the surface of the filler card. The signal monitoring and recording was implemented
wire at a faster rate, charging its surface to negative, relative by MATLAB programming. The sampling frequency of elec-
to the arc plasma. As a result, a nonelectrically neutral tran- trical signals was 1024 Hz. The original images were cap-
sition layer, namely plasma sheath, will be formed between tured at a frame rate of 1024 frames per second and their
the arc plasma and the surface of the filler wire. Accordingly, resolution was 256 × 256 pixels.
the plasma sheath voltage is also implicit in the probe volt-
ages. Although the sheath voltage (Us) may be very small, it Experimental Design
is the plasma sheath that connects the filler wire to the arc
plasma. A simplified schematic of the above description is The experimental materials were Q235 mild steel plates
demonstrated in Fig. 1, and the approximate relationship of with a dimension of 300 × 60 × 4 mm as the base metal and
these voltage signals can be expressed by Equation 1: pure argon of 99.99% with a flow rate of 10 L/min as the
shielding gas. The diameter of the tungsten electrode was
Upa = Ua + Ul + Us 2.4 mm and the length of the tungsten electrode protruding
Upc = Uc + Uu – Us (1) nozzle was 5 mm. Bead-on-plate welding was employed in
U = Ua + Uc + Ul + Uu = Upa + Upc the flat position.
Based on the proposed sensing method, three groups of

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Fig. 3 — Diagram of relative position change (0  Dr  Ds  Dt).

Table 1 — Experimental Parameters

Experiment I (A) v (cm/min) ETWD* (mm) H (mm) D (mm)  (s)

#1 65 7 7 3, 2, 1 – –
#2 65 7 6.5 2 0, 0.5 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0
#3 65 7 6 1.5 – –

*Note: ETWD means electrode tip to workpiece distance.

experiments (#1, #2, and #3) have been designed and con- The schematic relative position at different Ds can be seen
ducted. In all the experiments, a tungsten probe with a di- in Fig. 3. During the experiments, arc voltage and probe
ameter of 2.4 mm was immersed into the arc atmosphere in- voltage were collected, and the welding current was meas-
stead of the filler wire, and a relatively small welding current ured to ensure the voltage fluctuations were not caused by
(I) was employed, which can ensure that the probe was not the current fluctuations. Experimental data was filtered by a
burnt as much as possible and the surface of the workpiece simple moving average. Each average was calculated over a
was slightly melted, thus avoiding the metal transfer and dy- sliding window of 151 sample points, which was centered
namic evolution behaviors of the weld pool. This way, the about the element in the current position.
probe can simulate the filler wire to interfere with the arc The specific experimental designs and parameters are re-
plasma, thereby simplifying the objective of this study. Since spectively shown in Fig. 4 and Table 1. Experiment #1 is
the focus of this part of the work is only the inner interac- mainly used to investigate the static effects of a probe on
tion mechanisms between the GTA and filler wire, although the GTA. As demonstrated in Fig. 4A, during Experiment
this simulation is not equivalent to the actual filling process, #1, the welding torch moved horizontally several times to
it can also be considered that the effect of the filler wire as gradually go away from the probe tip until no probe voltage
conductive metal on arc plasma follows similar mechanisms was detected. It moved 1 mm each time (e.g., Da2  Da1  Da1
to that of the probe.  Da0  1 mm), and remained stationary for a while (10 s) af-
Figure 2 presents the schematic diagram of the experi- ter each movement. Experiment #1 had been conducted at
mental apparatus. As shown in Fig. 2, a tungsten probe was different Hs, and in this way, the electrical signals can be ob-
suspended parallel to the workpiece, and one end of this tained when the probe is in different spatial positions of the
probe was fixed to the clamping apparatus. This clamping arc column.
apparatus was placed on the welding workbench and isolat- Experiment #2 aimed to study the dynamic effects of an
ed by nonconductive insulating tape. The axis of the welding intermittent/continuous reciprocating probe on the GTA.
torch was perpendicular to the workpiece surface. There are The design of Experiment #2 is presented in Fig. 4B. The
two positional parameters, D and H, in Fig. 2, where D is the welding torch reciprocated equidistantly between position
horizontal distance between the probe tip and the symme- D = 0 mm and position D = Db0 = 0.5 mm. Whenever the
try axis of the electrode, and H is the height difference be- welding torch was horizontally displaced from its original
tween the probe and the workpiece surface. When the hori- position to the new position in the same reciprocating mo-
zontal relative position of the symmetry axis of the elec- tion mode, it stayed at the new position for a period of time
trode and the probe tip is as shown in Fig. 2, D is positive, (T) and then proceeded to the next step. Different Ts
and when the vertical relative position of the workpiece sur- (e.g., Ta > Tb) have been set during Experiment #2. When
face to the probe tip is as shown in Fig. 2, H is positive. T was 0 s, the probe generated a continuous interference,
The general experimental procedure was to keep the and when T was a non-zero value, the probe caused an in-
welding workbench stationary, suspend the probe at a termittent interference.
height of H, and move the welding torch at a welding speed Experiment #3 was about the dynamic effects of a continu-
(v) in the horizontal direction to change D (v is too small to ously moving probe on the GTA at different positions. As
affect the arc shape). When the absolute value of D de- shown in Fig. 4C, the welding torch reciprocated equidistantly
creased, the direction of v was considered positive, indicat- several times between different horizontal positions to con-
ing that the welding torch and the probe were approaching. tinuously generate dynamic interferences. The distance of

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the probe is directly inserted into the arc column, the conduc-
A
tive cross section in the vicinity of the probe is forcibly re-
duced, which destroys the conductive path with the minimum
energy consumption under the original conditions, thus tend-
ing to change the direction of electron flow. Although the arc
column will resist this change to keep the original conductive
path as much as possible, the conductive path following the
minimal energy principle will still tend to have different de-
grees of deflection (tend to become longer) under new condi-
tions. On the other hand, the probe intervention will alter the
B thermal field of the arc column. Since the probe that is cold rel-
ative to the arc plasma increases the arc heat loss, the arc col-
umn will automatically shrink to reduce the contact area with
the external medium, thereby minimizing the heat loss. It will
also contribute to the reduction in the conductive cross sec-
tion of the arc plasma near the probe, which will increase the
average current density and thus increase the average electric
field strength. In this way, the intervention of the metal probe
causes the arc voltage to rise.
C The relationship between the static probe at different po-
sitions and the stable arc voltage can be obtained by calcu-
lating the mean value of U in the rectangular frames of Fig.
5A, C, and E, and the results are as shown in Fig. 7. With the
increase in D, U declines more and more gently, and the in-
crease in H contributes to the rise of U. This is because the
ionization in the core area of the arc is more sufficient, so
the interference of the metal probe will gradually weaken as
it moves away from the core region of the arc. In addition,
Fig. 4 — Experimental designs (v0  7 mm/s). A — Experiment the cathode is an electron emission source. The closer the
#1; B — Experiment #2; C — Experiment #3. probe is to the cathode, the greater its influence on the GTA
will be. Therefore, the arc voltage will increase as H rises.
each movement was 1 mm, and at intervals, the welding torch It can be further found from Fig. 5 that whenever D is
moved to a farther distance from the probe for a new recipro- changed once, U can quickly level off after a small variation,
cating motion (e.g., Dc2  Dc1  Dc1  Dc0  1 mm). while the changes in U, Upc, and Upa are not completely con-
sistent with one another. During phase A, when U reaches a
new stable level, Upc and Upa are still changing in opposite di-
Results and Discussion rections, and any of them has a greater variation than U.
However, during phase B, the variation in Upc and Upa caused
Static Effects by the change in D becomes modest, and the trend of Upa in
phase B is opposite to that in phase A. Also, the transition
Figure 5 displays the electrical signals measured in Exper- period of Upc and Upa becomes very short or even inconspicu-
iment #1, where Upc and Upa were measured separately. In ous. In the final phase C, although U is almost unaffected by
Fig. 5, D increases stepwise as time goes on. For ease of de- the change in D, the change in D will once again cause Upc
scription, the process was roughly divided into phases A, B, and Upa to change significantly.
and C, which respectively corresponded to the situation As mentioned earlier, the arc voltage signal can reflect the
where the end of the probe was located in the original core overall electrical characteristics of the arc, and the probe volt-
area of the arc (the brightest area), the original noncore area age signal can reflect the electrical characteristics of the local
of the arc, and the area outside the arc (no strict demarca- area of the arc. Such diverse variations in Upc and Upa indicate
tion between the areas). The typical shapes of the core area that the influence of the metal probe on the electrical charac-
of the arc can be seen in Fig. 6. Both the voltage signals and teristics of different areas of the arc at different phases is not
the arc shape were affected by the metal probe. always consistent. During phase A, although the arc above the
When the probe occupies the space area that originally probe maintained its original shape as much as possible, the
belonged to the arc plasma, a plasma sheath will form near lower part of the arc severely deflected. The larger the H is, the
the probe surface and it will become a new partial edge area more severe the deflection will be. This is because the electron
of the arc plasma. Accordingly, the overall arc shape will be flow needs to reform the shortest conductive path between
changed. From phase A to B, U drops stepwise and each drop the anode and cathode due to the physical barrier of the probe.
resulted from an increase in D, while the growth in D did As H rises, the electron flow from the cathode will encounter
not cause such a change in U during phase C. Therefore, the this barrier earlier and thus be deflected more. In addition, the
metal conductor caused an increase in the arc voltage after it decrease in temperature around the probe tends to suppress
had immersed into an area of the GTA. the thermal ionization around the probe. Nevertheless, the
This can be explained from two aspects. On one hand, after neutral particles above the probe can still be directly bombard-

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A B

C D

E F

Fig. 5 — Electrical signals in Experiment #1. A — Upc and U at H  1 mm; B — Upa and U at H  1 mm; C — Upc and U at H  2 mm; D —
Upa and U at H  2 mm; E — Upc and U at H  3 mm; F — Upa and U at H  3 mm.

ed by electrons from the cathode direction and thus be ion- es, the main conductive path of the arc is gradually restored,
ized. However, in the area below the probe, because of the the arc deflection is reduced, and the gap in ionization be-
physical block by the probe, it will be difficult for the neutral tween the upper and lower parts of the arc is narrowed, so Upa
particles to be ionized by direct collision of electrons above the rises and Upc falls. In phase B, the end of the probe retreated to
probe, and the originally charged ions will even be recombined the original noncore area of the arc, and the main conductive
due to insufficient energy. Therefore, during phase A, the de- path of the original core area was almost restored. The effects
crease in D weakened the ionization of the lower part of the of the probe to the arc were weakened, and the probe no
arc and then reduced the electric field, thus bringing Upa down, longer caused apparent arc deflection. The upper and lower
which corresponded to a weaker heat production capacity, al- parts of the arc presented as a whole, and the trend of Upa and
though the arc length below the probe seemed to be longer. Upc unified with that of U. During phase C, although the inter-
Meanwhile, the heat production capacity of the upper part of ference of the probe was not enough to change the arc voltage,
the arc was enhanced to meet the increased overall heat pro- the edge area of the arc still had a gradient distribution of un-
duction capacity of the arc column, so the ionization degree stable charges, so apparent changes in the probe voltages
and electric field intensity of the upper part of the arc in- could still be detected.
creased, and Upc grew accordingly. In such a way, when the end Even if the physical medium forcibly intervenes in the
of the probe is in the original core area of the arc, as D increas- core area of the arc, the arc can still self regulate in a short

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Fig. 6 — Typical shapes of the core area of the arc from Fig. 7 — Arc voltage with the static probe immersed in differ-
phase A to C. ent positions of the arc column.

Fig. 8 — Electrical signals in Experiment #2. Fig. 9 — Electrical signals in Experiment #3.

time to present a new state of overall stable heat production along with the arc voltage, was sufficient to reflect the relat-
with the lowest energy consumption. However, in the area ed effects, so the follow up will only focus on probe voltage
near the anode, as the probe interference deepens, the arc Upa to avoid repetition.
stiffness is not as good as before, and it tends to be unsta-
ble. It is conceivable that as the interference increases, the Dynamic Effects
unstable area starting from the anode side will gradually ex-
pand toward the cathode side. Eventually, the arc will extin- In the actual welding process, the effects of the filler wire
guish because it will fail to maintain a stable self-sustained on the arc are more inclined to be dynamic effects. Figure 8
discharge process. shows the electrical signals measured in Experiment #2,
In the actual welding process, the interaction between where the end of the probe occupied the original core area of
the filler wire and arc should conform to the above mecha- the arc. Because the arc plasma possessed heat capacity, it
nisms, which will also cause the similar interference to the can be observed that if T was too short (less than the time
arc (except for metal transfer). To minimize the interference constant), Upa would not reach the stable level, and the fluc-
of the filler wire, it may be recommended to keep the end of tuation of Upa caused by the variation in D would be more
the filler wire melted in phase B. This is because, on the one moderate with a decreasing T.
hand, its interference on the core area of the arc is small; on During the intermittent interference period (e.g., when T
the other hand, if the end of the filler wire is melted in was 4 s), the local maximum of Upa did not appear when U
phase C, although the arc shape is stable, the filler wire may stayed at a lower level (when D was 0.5 mm), but approximate-
be melted intermittently due to the lack of heat. In addition, ly at a point when U was rising (when D was falling from 0.5 to
according to Equation 1, only one of the probe voltages, 0 mm), or probably when U had just risen to the stable level

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(when D had just completed the drop from 0.5 to 0 mm). Simi- the effects of the filler wire as a metal conductor on GTA
larly, the local minimum of Upa in Fig. 8 generally occurs when based on the proposed arc-sensing method of detecting
U has just completed a drop, rather than when U keeps at a probe voltages. The main conclusions drawn are as follows:
higher level. The above-mentioned changes are mainly due to 1) When the filler wire as a metal conductor is fed into
the variation in D that can cause a sudden change in the con- the arc, the arc voltage (U) will rise due to the increase in the
ductive cross section, which can immediately change the cur- average electric field strength of the arc. The closer the filler
rent density and thus change electric field strength, while the wire is to the core area of the arc, the greater the U will be.
arc itself has thermal inertia. 2) The probe voltages (Upa and Upc) can reflect the electri-
In the core area of the arc, the blocking by the probe tends cal characteristics of different local areas of the GTA. The ef-
to promote the ion recombination below the probe, while the fects of the filler wire as a metal conductor on the different
ion recombination will lag behind the decrease in D due to the areas of the arc at different phases are not always consis-
thermal inertia. Thus, below the probe, the decrease in the tent. When the filler wire is immersed in the original core
electric field strength caused by the ion recombination will lag area of the arc, the arc will be deflected, Upa will drop, and
behind the decrease in D. On the contrary, the decrease in D Upc will grow. When the filler wire is immersed in the origi-
will lead to the sudden decrease in the conductive cross sec- nal noncore area of the arc, the upper and lower parts of the
tion, resulting in an immediate increase in electric field arc will act as a whole, and the trend of Upa and Upc will fol-
strength. Therefore, in the early stage of the decrease in D, Upa low that of U.
will rise because of the immediate increase in electric field 3) When the filler wire as a metal conductor causes dynam-
strength caused by the sudden decrease in the conductive ic reciprocating interference to the arc, the probe voltage does
cross section. If D has enough time to continue to decrease, not strictly change synchronously with the arc voltage, but
the effect of ion recombination below the probe on the electric sometimes reaches peak or trough ahead of the arc voltage due
field strength will gradually emerge, thus reversing the growth to the thermal inertia. Nevertheless, the dynamic effects on
in Upa. Likewise, the gas ionization below the probe will also lag the arc can indeed be reflected in the probe voltage.
behind the increase in D, and Upa will change in the opposite
direction. Therefore, the rate of ion recombination and the Acknowledgments
rate of gas ionization will affect the moments at which the lo-
cal maximum and local minimum of the Upa occur, respectively.
It can be observed that during the intermittent interference,
the initial decline in Upa is steeper than its initial rise, which This study is supported by the National Natural Science
shows that the rate of ion recombination is faster than that of Foundation of China (Grant No.: 51505326), Natural Sci-
gas ionization in the early period after D starts to vary. The ence Foundation of Tianjin (Grant No.: 16JCQNJC04300),
same mechanism is also suitable for the continuous interfer- and the Regional Demonstration Project of Marine Econom-
ence process. Thus, in Fig. 8, Upa usually reaches the peak be- ic Innovation and Development (Grant No.: BHSF2017-10).
fore D falls to 0 mm and falls to the bottom when D has just
risen to 0.5 mm.
Figure 9 shows the electrical signals measured in Experi- References
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