Continuous anode mode for high-speed tungsten/inert-gas arc welding

N. Codings, B.Sc, Ph.D., and A.E. Guile, Ph.D., D.Sc.(Eng.), C.Eng., F.I.E.E.

Indexing term:
Abstract

Arc welding

It has been reported recently that, for an arc in air between a stationary thoriated tungsten rod cathode and two copper anode cylinders rotating together end to end, the arc current, when above a certain critical value, divides and flows from a stationary bell-shaped arc column into continuous 'diffuse' electron-collecting areas on the two anodes, instead of into separate anode spots with an arc column jumping from one to another. Because of possible advances in high-speed welding techniques, to which this continuous anode mode may lead, this work has now been extended to stainless-steel anodes in a shielding flow of argon. It is shown that this same mode does exist both for these conditons, and also when small percentages of hydrogen are added to the shielding gas, whereby useful increases in workpiece melting are achieved for the same arc current.

Introduction
1

2 2.1

Experimental method and results Apparatus

It has been shown that, for an arc in atmospheric air between a thoriated tungsten rod cathode and a rotating anode cylinder, the anode root mode changes from discrete, relatively widely spaced spots to a macroscopically continuous track when the current is increased above a critical value. More recently, it has been demonstrated2 that this latter mode with its stationary bell-shaped arc column also exists when the anode is divided into two cylindrical parts rotating at the same speed but insulated from one another. By measuring the division of arc current between the two anode cylinders as the cathode was displaced in the direction of the cylinder axis from the small gap between them, it was found to be possible to calculate the anode current density in this 'diffuse' mode. For copper, it was found to reach 5x 104A/cm2 over the central 0-5 mm diameter region of the anode root. It seems that it may be possible to use this anode mode in certain welding applications, such as the simultaneous heating, achieved by relatively high-speed movement of the anode roots, of the ends of two tubes by having approximately half the arc current flowing to each tube through an anode region with no concentrated discrete spots. This would allow the possibility of achieving pipe-to-pipe or pipe-to-flange welding by forging the two components together following heating of their two ends by an arc, the motion of which, relative to the surfaces, can be much faster than when an arc is used to produce continuous melting and solidifcation of this joint at a single pass. This high-speed method would have the merit of uniform joint heating with the weld being completed finally as a single operation with less risk of distortion, together with certain other advantages. Although in the system used in the experiments described in this paper, it is the tubular shim anodes which revolve while the cathode is a stationary rod outside them, it would be possible for welding large-bore pipes to rotate one or more rod cathodes inside the stationary pipes. If needed, there could be a second rotating cathode system outside the pipes. In this application the tube, material may be stainless steel or mild steel, and argon would probably be used as a main shielding gas as in normal tungsten/inert-gas (t.i.g.) welding. This paper describes experiments on stainless steel anodes using an argon gas shield in order to discover the following: (i) whether this protective inert atmosphere drastically modifies the anode mode (ii) whether this mode, which has been found for short arc durations with nonmelting anodes persists when the anode speed, arc duration and current are such that appreciable anode melting occurs, as required for welding (iii) to make a preliminary quantitative study of the effect of some of the main arc variables, such as shielding gas mixtures, arc gap and cathode geometry.

The original apparatus3 has been modified2 to allow two separate cylindrical shim anodes to be insulated from one another, and to revolve coaxially at the same speed with their ends butted together or separated by a short axial gap. This is illustrated diagrammatically in Fig. 1, which shows the arc to be between these two cylinders and a fixed tungsten rod cathode. Further modifications made for the work described in this paper have included a redesign of the cathode holder to enable thoriated tungsten cathodes of either 3-2mm or 64mm diameter to be used inside a standard BOC Mark 2 a welding torch nozzle, and the inclusion of an arc current control circuit. With the control circuit, a virtually constant current source was obtained, as well as allowing for the ramping of the arc current in certain tests. Finally, the measurement of arc voltage was improved by subtracting the brush voltage drop from the applied voltage. All the tests were conducted using 1 mm thick stainless-steel shims.

1 2 3 U cathode offset from anode split.mm Fig. 1

Variation of current flowing to second anode cylinder as a function of offset distance between anode track centre and edge of first anode cylinder
280 A arc in air on stainless-steel anodes moving with a surface speed of 2-4 m/s with a 2 mm gap to a 3-2 mm diameter thoriated-tungsten cathode with a 120 tip angle 2.2 Initial tests

Paper 7949 S, first received 1 7th March and in revised form 10th June 1977 Dr. Guile is, and Dr. Collings was formerly, with the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 93T, England, Dr. Collings is now with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Nottingham NG7 2RD, England

Previous work with arcs on copper shims in air2 was repeated using stainless-steel shims. Fig. 1 shows that the same 'diffuse' or 'continuous high speed' mode of electron collection occurs at a 905

PROC. IEE, Vol. 124, No. 10, OCTOBER 1977

stainless-steel anode. From this result, the peak anode current density was calculated to be about 8 x 103 A/cm2, some seven times less than that found on copper in air. The radial current distribution was much less peaked than that for copper, falling to half maximum in about 0-6 mm compared with 0-3 mm, while at lmm radius the current densities were respectively 25% and 1% of maximum for steel and copper. An attempt was made, using argon shielding gas, to make a direct comparison with the current distribution at the anode root on stainless steel shown in Fig. 1 for air, but although currents to both cylinders were recorded it was not possible to measure the offset distance between the edge of one anode shim and the centre line of the arc track with sufficient accuracy to determine the radial current density distribution. This was because the reduction in anode heating using argon instead of air produced tracks, at speeds and currents used in Fig. 1, which were almost invisible apart from a faint discolouration of the shim. Once it had been established that very considerable increase in anode melting occurred when arc current was increased and speed was decreased from the values in Fig. 1, as well as by using multiple rotation, then all further tests were conducted using a single anode shim.
2.3 Effect of electrode geometry

At a constant current it was found that increasing the cathode diameter from 3-2 to 6-4 mm and decreasing the tip angle from 120 to 60 led to some increase in anode melting, and, since also the range of current for the continuous mode was greatest using a 6-4 mm 60 cathode tip, this latter electrode geometry was adopted for all the remaining tests. It may be noted that the transition current of the order of 30 A, shown in Fig. 2 to occur for a 6-4 mm diameter cathode with 60 angle, is well below the range of 120A to 160A found4 for a stainlesssteel anode in air with the same cathode. The line for a 6-4 mm cathode in Fig. 2 is so steep that a change (say) of gas could, by displacing it sideways, lead to a very large change in transition current. It should be noted that each line is strictly a band with a width typically about 15 A. In contrast to the difference in transition current between air and argon for 6-4 mm cathodes, there was found to be virtually no difference for these two gases when using a 3-2 mm 120 cathode both at 2 mm and 4 mm spacing from the workpiece. This may be because the curve for 3-2 mm cathodes in Fig. 2 is so much less steep than for a 6-4 mm cathode.

Thoriated tungsten cathodes of 3-2 mm and 6-4mm diameter with tip angles of 30, 60, 90 and 120 were used in an argon shielding flow of 61/min to determine the effect of tip angle on anode heating and on transition current. Anode heating could only be based on a comparative and qualitative examination of the anode track, although subtle variations were not considered to be important in these tests. The shims used were thin (1 mm), and thus the heating was to a large extent two dimensional. This is particularly true of the tracks exhibiting significant melting, and in this case the relative track widths give a good impression of the relative anode heating. The tests established the range of current below which the discontinuuous stepping mode of the anode root occurred, and above which was found the continuous mode, and the results are shown in Fig. 2. This shows that for a 6-4 mm diameter cathode with 60 tip angle, the arc current can be reduced to as little as 40 A without the anode root changing to the stepping mode.
i i i

200

i
0-1 0-2 arc duration.s b 03

180

i
160 i

i Fig. 3 Anode track

a

140

1 i
i i
i

Photograph of anode track with diminishing melting occurring with a freshly ground cathode tip b Arc voltage and current waveoforms for a

120 /

4 // /

<100

1
u O

s
Fig. 4

3 80

60

. /
40 20

/'*

'' 1
i

> '

i i i

Photograph of anode tracks for 260 A at a speed of 0- 4 m/s with 4 mm gap

a With pure argon shielding (arc voltage 15-2 V) b With argon + 10% hydrogen (arc voltage 17-8 V)

i
1

0 30 60 90 cathode tip included angle, degrees Fig. 2

120

Transition current as a function of thoriated-tungsten rod cathode tip angle for two diameters of cathode
Gap of 2 mm between cathode tip and stainless-steel anode with argon flow rate of 6 litres per minute Continuous mode above each line; spotting mode below each line

It was observed, during initial tests with a single shim, that although the current was constant, the initial part of an arc track occasionally exhibited more melting than the remainder of the track, as shown in Fig. 3a. This 'excess melting' is associated with a higher voltage, as shown in Fig. 3b, of about 2 V. It was found that this effect only occurred when a freshly ground cathode tip was in use, and the second arc burnt on a new cathode tip exhibited virtually none of the excess melting mode. Since this mode, which had not been found in air, is so short-lived, of the order of 100 ms, it is unlikely to be of significance in a practical welding situation, although the physical cause is interesting, as discussed later.
2.4 Effect of shielding gas composition

3-2 mm diameter cathode: A 6-4 mm diameter cathode filled symbols continuous mode open symbols spotHng'mode

The power input to the workpiece of argon shielded arcs can be increased by the addition of, for example, helium in large PROC. IEE, Vol. 124, No. 10, OCTOBER 1977

906

percentages or small amounts of hydrogen, without detriment to the weld quality.s Tests were conducted for arcs burning in 5% and 10% hydrogen/argon mixtures and the transition to a continuous mode was found to occur at similar currents to those shown in Fig. 2 for pure argon. It was found that at constant current and velocity, a dramatic increase in melting, and a voltage rise of about 4 V, were associated with the introduction of as little as 10% hydrogen, as illustrated in Fig. 4, for a 280 A arc. Furthermore, the excess melting mode was never observed in any gas or gas mixture other than pure argon. By applying a ramp current to the arc, continuous V/I characteristics were obtained for 2 mm and 4 mm spacing, as shown in Fig. 5 for zero and 10% hydrogen, at a speed of 0-4 m/s. The general shape of each curve is as normally expected, but it is interesting that the current associated with minimum voltage varies significantly with hydrogen content. It was also noted that, at fixed current, a high velocity leads to a higher arc voltage, a change of about 1 V being associated with a change of velocity from 0-1 to 0-4 m/s. These tests at 4 mm and others at 6 mm spacing indicated that although the arc voltage increased there was a reduction in anode melting with increase in arc length.
20

are more important in the high-speed arc, and that some of the effects do not exist in a low-speed arc. Maecker suggested6 that one effect of the cathode jet can be to bring positive ions to the anode and thus reduce the electric field near to the anode, which would otherwise be partly responsible for the production of the ions. It was thought6 to be possible that the need for an ion generation zone could even be completely removed because the positive ions carried by the jet could be sufficient for plasma neutrality, and that this might explain a diffuse current collection mode at the anode that had been found7 for argon and nitrogen arcs of up to 500 A. Since a large fraction of the anode heat input can be associated with the anode fall voltage,8 it is arguable that the rapid reduction in the excess melting observed with a fresh cathode tip could be attributed to a change in the cathode geometry, and thus in the cathode jet. It may also be noted that it has been reported here that some change in anode melting can occur with changes in tip angle. It is well known9 that the cathode geometry can have a marked effect on the cathode jet in the case of a t.i.g. welding arc, and the results of Fig. 2, the relationship between cathode geometry and transition current, can probably be interpreted as changes in the strength and/or structure of the cathode jet. It is possible, however, that the transition current is very sensitive to relatively small changes in the cathode jet, and that the jet does not change significantly with tip angle,. It should also be pointed out that it has not conclusively been proved experimentally that cathode jets do decrease anode heat input, because it has not been possible to devise an experiment in which the cathode jet can be varied independently of other arc parameters.
( i )

(ii)

6L
Fig. 5

100

200 arc current

"300"

"Ado-

Voltage/current characteristics for arcs at a speed of 0-4 m/s

o
A

2 mm 2 mm 4 mm 4 mm

gap gap gap gap

0% hydrogen 10% hydrogen 0% hydrogen 10% hydrogen

2.5

Effect of anode surface preparation

Anode shims were normally polished with a fine grade of emery paper (although no changes in the arc or its track were observed due to different surface mechanical preparations), and then degreased, but it was noted, accidentally, that contamination of the surface due to contact with a finger produced a marked increase in melting and arc voltage. This is illustrated in Fig. 6a, which illustrates the increased melting on a shim contaminated with both a finger, and also another arbitrarily chosen contaminant, insulating lacquer. Between the two excess melting zones, an emeried and degreased portion is shown for comparison. The voltage trace is shown in Fig. 6b. It is clear that the lacquer causes much greater melting than 'finger grease', but the upper track of Fig. 6a shows that during multiple passes of the arc, six in this case, the enhancement of melting due to the contaminant decreases. If the enhancement of melting using contaminants were to be used in practice, it might be introduced continuously just in front of the arc. At the. speeds normally encountered in welding, this effect probably goes unnoticed, since surface contaminants would enter the arc at a very low rate, but it is possible that the melting effectiveness of the conventional t.i.g. arc might be increased by the direct introduction of suitable contaminants.

0-2 arc duration,s b

Fig. 6

Anode track
a Effect of surface contaminant on anode track (i) finger marks (ii) electrical insulating lacquer track I: 250 A 6 revolutions of arcing track II:250A single rotation track III:2S0A single rotation track IV:300A single rotation b Arc voltage and current waveforms for track IV of a

Discussion of results

The results presented show that the 'continuous' arc mode exists in argon and argon/hydrogen shielding gases as well as in air, and in particular that it continues to exist when considerable anode melting is taking place. This result may be of importance for certain welding applications outlined in the introduction. It is interesting that the high-speed argon arc's melting efficiency can be increased considerably by what might be regarded as slight variations in parameters. These effects are possibly only observed with a high-speed arc, as the arc can easily be operated near to the niejting/nonmelting condition, where small changes in heat input are clearly seen, but it may also be that cathode jetting phenomena PROC. IEE, Vol. 124, No. 10, OCTOBER 1977

It has been shown here that both a sharp cathode tip and surface contaminants can increase, by similar amounts, both melting and arc voltage. This raises the question of whether erosion of tungsten and thorium from the initially sharp cathode tip and their subsequent arrival at or near the workpiece surface might possibly be an alternative explanation to cathode jet changes for the excess melting that occurs for a short time after arc initiation. Thus, it may be that these effects, rather than being due to cathode jet changes, can be explained in terms of chemical changes, i.e. the increased melting might be considered to be caused by plasma composition changes, in particular adjacent to the anode, and/or constriction of the anode current collection zone. Variations in arc voltage and associated changes in anodespot size have been observed in t.i.g. welding of stainless steel, which were thought10 to be brought about by preferential evaporation of the more volatile constituents in the weld pool. Deliberate irrtroduc907

tion of alkali elements caused the anode-spot area to increase while the arc voltage fell by about 1 V. Small traces of some elements caused variations in the depth and cross-sectional area of welds of Inconel 600, or increases of up to 0-7 V when welding nickel.11 Improvements in the penetration of t.i.g. arcs on stainless steel have been noted by Majetich12 when a thin film of metal oxide (particularly Fe3O2 and CrO3) is present as a precoating of the anode. Recent work13 has not, however, confirmed that there is any simple relationship between the variability of width/depth ratio of t.i.g. welds on stainless steel and small impurity levels in them. It is suspected13 that complex interactions may be involved between electromagnetic stirring in the weld pool and effects due to material of low ionisation potential such as slags or scum on the pool surface. It was noticed that the anode spot could anchor at the scum, produced, for example, by prior polishing with abrasive paper, and move on to another patch of scum when the first was consumed. The increase in melting resulting from the addition of hydrogen can probably be explained mainly as the effect of a dissociating molecular gas supplying recombination energy to the cooler anode, and thus it is plausible to consider all the effects described as due to chemical changes. Fig. 5 shows that an addition of 10% hydrogen to argon gives a 2 to 3 times greater increase in arc voltage for a 4 mm arc than for a 2 mm arc, over the whole range of current explored. This, taken together with the result reported that the anode melting decreases when arc length is increased from 2 mm to 4 mm, appears to suggest that addition of hydrogen may, as well as giving dissociation energy to the workpiece, introduce other effects that are detrimental to the overall efficiency: e^g. the hydrogen may increase the heat loss from the arc column due to an increase in effective thermal conductivity. It is important also to emphasise that some of the results might be due to changes in the constriction of the arc at the anode, so that although more or less melting may be observed in a particular case, the total heat to the workpiece may not have changed to the same extent. This question, as well as the effect of arc length on overall efficiency, can only be answered if the total heat entering the anode can be measured, as well as the molten volume, and for this reason a calorimetric rig has now been built that allows much thicker anodes to be used, and thus come closer to a welding situation in which arcs can run a number of times over the same track. At present, data on the heat balance in t.i.g. arcs is only available up to speeds of a few millimetres per second,14 and this is also true of the proportion of the arc energy that is used in workpiece melting.15 Thus, although the qualitative results presented here demonstrate some of the basic aspects of t.i.g.-type arcs at high speed, and demonstrates the essential

suitability of this arcing mode and arrangement for some welding applications, quantitative results are now beginning to be measured, and it is intended that these will be reported in due course.
4 Acknowledgments

The authors thank M.A. Hilton and LA. McLelland, who made preliminary measurements, and the Welding Institute, which funded this part of the work, and J.C. Needham of that Institute for helpful suggestions in the early stages. They also thank the UK Science Research Council for a grant that has supported the main part of the work.
5 References

1 REEVES-SAUNDERS, R.: 'Observation of a transition into a stable mode for an arc burning on a rotating anode', /. Phys. D., 1971, 4, pp. D1-D3 2 GUILE, A.E., HILTON, M.A., McLELLAND, I.A., and REEVE-SAUNDERS R.: 'Arc current distribution in 'continuous high-speed' anode tracks,' ibid., 1975, 8, pp. 964-970 3 REEVES-SAUNDERS, R.: 'A moving electrode technique for studying highcurrent arcs',/. Phys. E., 1974, pp. 359-363 4 REEVES-SAUNDERS, R.: 'The evolution of high-current dc arcs on rotating electrodes', Ph.D. Thesis, Australian National University, Canberra, 1972 5 CRESSWELL, R.A.: 'Use of argon-hydrogen mixtures for tungsten-inertgas welding of stainless steel', Proceedings of 2nd Commonwealth Welding Conference, 1965, Welding Institute, pp. 3-10 6 MAECKER, H.: 'Plasmastromungen in Lichtbo'gen infolge eigenmagnetischer Kompression', Z. Phys., 1955, 141, pp. 198-216 7 BUSZ-PEUCKERT, G., and FINKELNBURG, W.: Thermal arcs at high temperature and low burning voltage', ibid., 1954, 138, pp. 212-225 8 SCHOECK, P.A.: 'An investigation of the anode energy balance of high intensity arcs in argon, in IBELE, W. (Ed.), 'Modern developments in heat transfer' (Academic Press, 1963), pp. 353-400 9 JACKSON, C.E.: 'The science of arc welding', Weld. J. Res. SuppL, 1960, 39, pp. 129s-140s, 177s-199s and 225s-230s 10 LUDWIG, H.C.: 'Current density and anode spot size in the gas tungsten arc', ibid., 1968,47, pp. 234s-240s 11 CHASE, T.F. Jnr. and SAVAGE, W.F.: 'Effect of anode composition on tungsten arc characteristics', ibid., 1971, 50, pp. 467s-473s 12 MAJETICH, J.C: 'Method of welding stainless steel', US patent 3, 584,187, 1971 13 METCALFE, J.C, and QUIGLEY, M.B.C.: 'The effects of impurity on the arc and weld pool stability in TIG welding'. International Institute of Welding, document 212-357-76,1976 14 QUIGLEY, M.B.C., RICHARDS, P.H., SWIFT-HOOK, D.T., and GICK, A.E.F. 'Heat flow to the workpiece from a TIG welding arc', /. Phys. D., 1973,6,pp. 2250-2258 15 NILES, R.W., and JACKSON, C.E.: 'Weld thermal efficiency of the GTAW process', Weld. J. Res. SuppL, 1975,54, pp. 25s-32s

Correspondence
NEW ALGORITHM FOR THE OPTIMAL STABILISATION OF LINEAR SYSTEMS USING POLEASSIGNMENT TECHNIQUES In Paper 7501C [Proc. IEE, 1975, 122, (11), pp. 1316-1319], Dr. Elangovan and Mr. Srinivasan have presented an algorithm for the optimal stabilisation of linear systems, which, it is claimed, is more efficient than others that have been devised.Al B While not refuting this, it should be pointed out that this algorithm is by no means the most efficient that can be derived, and indeed is unnecessarily complicated. There appear to be two points that afford improvement; the first of which arises from the observation that each eigenvalue exchange should necessitate consideration of merely first- or second-order models, depending on whether the eigenvalue is real or complex. Thus, at each stage, only a 2 x 2 o r 4 x 4 matrix of the form of eqn. 39 need be considered, or equivalently only a one or two dimensional matrix Riccati equation need be solved. This point has been overlooked in Reference C, but has been noted by Elangovan and Srinivasan in a more or less contemporary paper,D which, for some reason, does not reference the paper at present under discussion. The second point is that, at step (a) of the algorithm, one has already performed more than enough calculations to resolve the problem. To accomplish each eigenvalue exchange only requires the computation of a single row of a matrix, which is essentially M~l, and alternative methods, to the direct calculation of M and its inversion, exist. Both these points have been discussed by the correspondents,E and it has been possible to give a complete closed-form solution to the problem of assigning distinct real eigenvalues in the manner here considered. 1st December 1975 A.C. Department of Mathematics Plymouth Polytechnic Drake Circus, Plymouth, England 908

Department of Mathematics University of Technology Loughborough, Leicestershire LEI 1 3TU England

A.K. SHELTON

We are pleased to note that A.C. Pugh and A.K. SheltonE have proposed a technique which is faster and more efficient than our method. The paper under discussionF was first submitted by us to Proceedings IEE in December 1974 and in revised for in June 1975. It was published in the November 1975 issue of Proceedings IEE. Therefore, we could not cite as a Reference our paperD which appeared in Electronics Letters in August 1975. We would like to state that the methods proposed by us in these two papersF<D are not the same and they deal with different aspects of the problem. Anybody who goes through these papers in detail will be able to find the difference very easily. Department of Electrical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Madras-600 036, India
References
A SOLHEIM, O.A.: 'Design of optimal control systems with prescribed eigenvalues', Int. J. Control, 1972,15, pp. 143-160 B ELANGOVAN, S., SRINIVASAN, G., and RAO, N.: 'Design of optimal controllers of power systems with prescribed eigenvlaues', IEEE power meeting, Anaheim, California, 1974 C RAO, S.V., and LAMBA, S.S.: 'Eigenvalue assignment in linear optimalcontrol systems via reduced-order models', Proc. IEE, 1975, 122, (2) pp 197-201 D ELANGOVAN, S., SRINIVASAN, G., and RAO, N.: 'Computer algorithm for optimal control of linear systems with assigned eigenvalues' Electron. Lett, 1975, 11, pp. 361-362 E PUGH, A.C, and SHELTON, A.K.: 'An improved algorithm for optimal stabilisation of linear systems', ibid, 1975, 11, pp. 528-529 F ELANGOVAN, S., and SRINIVASAN, G.: 'New algorithm for optimal stabilisation of linear systems using pole-assignment techniques', Proc. IEE, 1975, 122, (11), pp. 1316-1319 DTC67C

S. ELANGOVAN G. SRINIVASAN

PROC. IEE, Vol. 124, No. 10. OCTOBER 1977