Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Abstract Welding fumes are classified as a class 1 carcinogen, according to IARC. A conical chamber was built to determine emission factors and fume generation rates of particles from various welding processes. The chamber was calibrated according to the American Welding Society (AWS) standard F1.2:2013 and a high-volume air sampling pump was fixed to the top of the chamber to collect the fumes on 293 mm glass fibre filters located between the cone and the pump. Two welding processes were tested: gas metal arc welding (GMAW) and low power density laser beam welding (LLBW). Tests were performed using seven different types of consumables and different base materials. Consumables included ER70S-2, ER70S-6, ER70S-3, ER308L, ER316L, E316LSi, and ER5356 and the base materials included mild steel, stainless steel, and aluminium. Except for aluminium, which could not ne weld with this particular LLBW machine, the same consumables were used for GMAW and LLBW. Three levels of welding voltages in GMAW and power settings in LLBW were used for each type of consumable to see the effect of voltage and power on particle emission factors and fume generation rates. Additionally, differences between particle emission factors and fume generation rates from GMAW and LLBW for each consumable were compared. Emission factors and fume generation rates increased with increasing voltage/power. Although the fume generation rates were lower for LLBW than for GMAW, the emission factors were higher for LLBW.
Khaligh et al. (Sat,) studied this question.