Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Investigations on effect of process parameters on GTAW of aluminium

alloy welding using full factorial design technique
D. Sathishkumar, A. Daniel Das
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karpagam Academy of Higher Education, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641 021, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) is most commonly used for welding Aluminium Alloys in most of the
Received 19 May 2020 industrial applications. The base metals used in this research work is Al 7075 in plate form. In this
Accepted 24 May 2020 research investigation, current (A), welding speed (mm/min) and flow rate (lt/min) are the input param-
Available online xxxx
eters and tensile strength (MPA) is the output parameter to check welding strength. Generally, this type
of welding depends largely on the current and welding speed. This research work extended to identify the
Keywords: effect of process parameters in various mathematical calculations. Optimization part has been performed
AL7075
using Full Factorial Design (FFD) which is used to check the quality of welding parameters. The Statistical
FFD
Factorial
software has been used to identify the quality of process parameters.
Tensile Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Aluminium Alloy Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
Minitab ence on Newer Trends and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering: Materials Science.

1. Introduction to simplify the welding issues of Aluminium alloys. The chemical

Aluminium and its alloys are mostly used in industrial applica-
tions, Automobile application and aerospace application due to the
less density weight material, excellent corrosion resistance and
good mechanical properties. Also, aluminium is very ease in fabri-
cating components [1,2]. Aluminium can easily altered by the addi-
tion of various material in the powder for as per the terms and
condition of the customers. Though, Aluminium has excellent cor-
rosion resistance, it is used in marine fabricating applications [3–
5]. To enhance the corrosive resistance property, a good property
material such as tungsten, vanadium compounds are mixed while
fabrication [6]. Aluminium acts as a good conductor of electricity
when it got added with cuprum, the chemical name of purest form
of copper [7]. Hence, it is widest reason the composition used in
high tension power cables. When Aluminium is clubbed with Mag-
nesium and Silicon, the mechanical property got increased com-
pared to purest form of Aluminium and its alloy described by
Kumar et al [8]. In this research article, the metallographic exami-
nation reveals grains arranged at the weld interface is refined and
bond strength is high. The investigation of various researchers by
analyzing the parameters via mathematical models and iteration
E-mail addresses: sathishkumar.d@kahedu.edu.in (D. Sathishkumar), danieldas.
a@kahedu.edu.in (A.D. Das)
composition of AA 7075 is tabulated in Table 1.
Fig. 1 shows the GTAW sample of AA 7075 using Current, Feed
rate and Flow rate. The current used in this welding process is
Direct Current (DC). The dimension of the base plate is width * -
height, 50 * 140 and thickness is 5 mm respectively.
2. Optimization
In this research investigation, full factorial design methodology
has been performed to optimize eight different GTAW specimen.
This design is a most common design which has input factors
and two levels each. It has low level (-1) and high level (1). Math-
ematically, the factorial design has k factors with various set of
levels, mentioned as 2k [9-13]. The technique is particularly helpful
at the early stage of DoE. A Cube factor is the key level that coded
low level and high level. Table 2 shows the design summary of the
full factorial design
The welded specimens are slashed as per ASTM E8 standard for
performing tensile strength test. The tensile strength test is per-
formed for eight different samples using universal tensile testing
machine ASTM D638. The bisected sample are allowed to do met-
allurgical analysis. Table 3 shows the factors and levels of the L8
orthogonal array developed by full factorial design. From Table 3,
the current has 80 A at low level and 100 A at high level, whereas

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.624
2214-7853/Ó 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Newer Trends and Innovation in Mechanical Engineering:
Materials Science.

Please cite this article as: D. Sathishkumar and A. D. Das, Investigations on effect of process parameters on GTAW of aluminium alloy welding using full
factorial design technique, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.624
2 D. Sathishkumar, A.D. Das / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 1 Table 2
Chemical composition of AA 7075 (OES Methods). Design summary of full factorial
design.
Alloy Mg Cr Cu Fe Mn Si Zn Al
Factors 3
Wt% 2.9 0.28 2 0.5 0.3 0.4 6.1 Bal
Runs 8
Blocks 1
Base Design 3, 8
welding speed has 60 mm/min at low level and 80 mm/min at high Replicates 1
level and flow rate has 15 lt/min at low level and 17 lt/min at high Center pts (total) 0
level.

Table 3
Factors and levels of full factorial design.
3. Results and discussion
Factors Low Level High Level

In this research investigation, L8 orthogonal array has been per- Current (A) 80 100
Welding Speed (mm/min) 60 80
formed and the results are tabulated in Table 4. From the table, the
Flow rate (lt/min) 15 17
arrangement of low level values and high level values are accom-
plished at the input factors current (A), welding speed (mm/min)
and flow rate (lt/min). The output findings for corresponding input Table 4
parameters is Tensile strength (MPa) [14-17]. Input and output parameter for L8 orthogonal array.
From Table 4, maximum tensile strength is identified as Ex. Current Welding Speed Flow Rate (lt/ Tensile Strength
121 MPa for the corresponding input parameters, 80 A current, No (A) (mm/min) min) (MPa)
60 mm/min welding speed and 15 lt/min flow rate. Here, the table 1 100 60 15 102
concludes that 80 A current produces steady flow and melting 2 80 60 15 121
point on the surface also gradual. Welding speed should be mini- 3 80 80 17 104
mum and hence it helps in metal flow rate gradually and flow rate 4 80 80 15 100
5 100 60 17 113
is minimum is the added advantage. And hence it produces opti-
6 80 60 17 107
mum joining strength. 7 100 80 17 109
Fig. 2 shows the pareto chart effect with tensile strength as 8 100 80 15 98
response value. By Fig. 1, it is explained that factor A should be cur-
rent (A), factor B should be welding speed and factor C should be
flow rate. There is an incremental order in identifying tensile From the table, it is clearly explained that welding speed mm/
strength using or combining each parameter. As per the analysis min is the most convincing parameter followed by flow rate lt/
factor B pair produces high tensile strength. Hence welding speed min and current A. The delta value for high ranking parameter is 8.
is the most convincing parameter compared with all other param- Fig. 4 shows the interaction plot for tensile strength in full fac-
eters. Lenth’s Pseudo-Standard Error for this response is 6.75 and torial design. From Fig. 4, welding speed and flow rate are the most
this set the maximum level of process parameters. The alpha value convincing parameter corresponding to current value. The param-
is 0.05. eters at the lower level produces optimum joint strength. Fig. 5
Fig. 3 shows the graph plot for main effect plot. From main shows the contour plot of tensile strength for the corresponding
effect plot, it is concluded that Current and Weld speed has high input parameters. The contour plot states the same philosophy
impact in producing optimum joint strength [18-20]. Here, 80 A which described before.
current and 60 mm/min welding speed at the most convincing From Table 6 and Table 7, the lower and Lower and upper ten-
parameters. Table 5 shows that main effect response for data mean sile strength along with weight and importance level and Optimum
values. tensile strength with corresponding to input parameters with

Fig. 1. GTAW sample for AA 7075 using current, feed rate and flowrate.

Please cite this article as: D. Sathishkumar and A. D. Das, Investigations on effect of process parameters on GTAW of aluminium alloy welding using full
factorial design technique, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.624
 D. Sathishkumar, A.D. Das / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx 3

Fig. 2. Pareto chart in response with tensile strength.

Table 5
Composite Desirability. Fig. 6 shows the optimum graph plot for Main effect response for data means.
maximum tensile strength value. Fig. 7 shows the cubic plot for
Level Current Welding Speed (mm/min) Flow Rate
desired input and output values.
(A) (lt/min)
1 108.0 110.8 105.3
4. Conclusion 2 105.5 102.8 108.3
Delta 2.5 8.0 3.0
GTAW is widely used for joining Aluminium plates and follow- Rank 3 1 2
ing conclusions are extended:

 The optimum tensile strength has been achieved by 80 A cur-  Lenth’s Pseudo-Standard Error for this response is 6.75 and this
rent, 60 mm/min welding speed and 17 lt/min flow rate and set the maximum level of process parameters. The alpha value
121 MPa tensile strength. is 0.05.

Fig. 3. Main effect plot for data means.

Please cite this article as: D. Sathishkumar and A. D. Das, Investigations on effect of process parameters on GTAW of aluminium alloy welding using full
factorial design technique, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.624
4 D. Sathishkumar, A.D. Das / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 4. Interaction plot for tensile strength.

Fig. 5. Contour plot of tensile strength vs process parameters.

Table 6 Table 7
Lower and upper tensile strength along with weight and importance level. Optimum tensile strength with corresponding to input parameters.

Response Goal Lower Target Upper Weight Importance Solution Current Welding Flow Rate Tensile Composite
(A) Speed (lt/min) Strength Desirability
Tensile Maximum 98 121 1 1
(mm/min) (MPa)
Strength
(MPa) 1 80 60 15 121 1

Please cite this article as: D. Sathishkumar and A. D. Das, Investigations on effect of process parameters on GTAW of aluminium alloy welding using full
factorial design technique, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.624
 D. Sathishkumar, A.D. Das / Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx 5

Fig. 6. Optimum graph plot for maximum tensile strength.

Fig. 7. Cubic plot for desired input parameter and output extension.

 It is identified that welding speed mm/min is the most convinc- References

ing parameter followed by flow rate lt/min and current A. The
delta value for high ranking parameter is 8.
 According to contour plot, the low level value has produces
optimum joint strength.
 As per cubic plot and optimum graph plot, 80 A current, 60 mm/
min welding speed and 17 lt/min flow rate achieved 121 MPa
welding strength.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.
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Please cite this article as: D. Sathishkumar and A. D. Das, Investigations on effect of process parameters on GTAW of aluminium alloy welding using full
factorial design technique, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2020.05.624