《Laser enhanced GMAW》.pdfVIP

SUPPLEMENT TO THE WELDING JOURNAL, SEPTEMBER 2010 Sponsored by the American Welding Society and the Welding Research Council Laser-Enhanced GMAW An innovative method to detach droplets at given arc variables is proposed BY Y. HUANG AND Y. M. ZHANG ABSTRACT of the electrode wire and be detached mainly by gravity. This transfer mode is A novel modification to conventional GMAW is introduced by applying a low-power globular metal transfer. If the current fur- laser to droplets to generate an auxiliary detaching force. The electromagnetic force ther increases such that the detaching needed to detach droplets, thus the current that determines this force, is reduced. The electromagnetic force becomes sufficiently undesired dependence of the metal transfer on the current is decoupled such that the large, the transfer mode may change to current may be freely chosen to control the weld penetration and weld pool without re- projected spray transfer in which discrete strictions as in conventional GMAW due to the need for metal transfer. The resultant droplets detached at diameters similar to process is referred to as laser-enhanced gas metal arc welding. To prove the feasibility that of the wire; or even streaming or ro- of this idea, a constant-power laser was applied to droplets from a 0.8-mm-diameter tating spray transfer resulting in a stream steel wire in GMAW. A number of experimental conditions that typic