Study of the welding gas influence on a controlled short-arc GMAW process by optical emission spectroscopy

The controlled short-arc processes, variants of the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process, which have recently been developed, are used to reduce the heat input into the workpiece. Such a process with a wire feeding speed which varies periodically, using a steel wire and a steel workpiece to produce bead-on-plate welds has been investigated. As welding gases CO2 and a mixture of Ar and O2 have been used. Depending on the gas, the properties of the plasma change, and as a consequence the weldseams themselves also differ distinctly. Optical emission spectroscopy has been applied to analyse the plasma. The radial profiles of the emission coefficients of an iron line and an argon line or an atomic oxygen line, respectively, have been determined. These profiles indicate the establishment of a metal vapour arc core which has a broader profile under CO2 but is more focused in the centre for argon. The measured iron line emission was near to its norm maximum in the case of CO2. From this fact, temperatures around 8000 K and a metal vapour molar fraction above 75% in the arc centre could be roughly estimated for this case. Estimations of the electrical conductivity and the arc field indicate that the current path must include not only the metal vapour arc core but also outer hot regions dominated by welding gas properties in the case of argon.