Double-Electrode Gas Metal Arc Welding

University Of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington KY

Investigators

Abstract

The objective of this research is to study an innovative arcing mechanism and the resulting novel process of double-electrode gas metal arc welding or DE-GMAW. The approach is to separate the production and control of the base metal part of arc heat from the production and control of the electrode melting part of arc heat. This separate production and control mechanism allows the base metal part of arc heat to be controlled at a desirable level for an appropriate bonding between the detached droplet and the base metal while the electrode melting part of arc heat can be increased to maximize the productivity. The proposed studies involve heat transfer, arc radiation, fluid mechanics, numerical modeling, materials, control system/theory, circuits design and computer hardware/software development. The importance of this research first lies in that it will establish a knowledge base which can help understand and support the operation and optimization of the promising DE-GMAW process and help US manufacturing industry improve competitiveness, especially with countries where the labor cost is relatively low. It will also provide opportunities to train participating graduate students through challenging multi-disciplinary research and industry-collaborations and help the PI develop credited and non-credit short courses on control based manufacturing which are needed to educate first-class manufacturing engineers and graduate students. In addition, the PI will identify appropriate topics for two outstanding undergraduate students, with one or two from under-represented groups, and for two exceptional high school students to attract them to graduate school and to choose engineering careers.