Experimental investigations of the arc MIG-MAG welding
Résumé
The type of the applied shielding gas has a strong influence on quality of the welding process. In particular, increase of the percentage of carbon dioxide in argon, causes increase of the transition current value from the globular to spray mode of metal transfer. Observations by fast camera allows to better characterize the arc column shape in the different working modes. The spectroscopic diagnostic of the welding arc is also necessary to understand the observed changes in the mode of droplet transfer. The use of an original diagnostic method allows to estimate the temperature and the electronic density distributions in the plasma without hypothesis on its equilibrium state. Results of this work seem to show that the observed effects could be linked to the microstructural modifications of the anode tip during the MIGMAG welding process as a function of the gas composition, and especially to the existence and disappearance of an insulating oxide “gangue” at the wire extremity.