Preliminary study of bead-on-plate welding bead geometry for 316L stainless steel using GMAW

Abstract

The application of the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process can produce metal parts in additive manufacturing (AM) and has the advantages of fast production speed and material saving. There are some different requirements for welding beads between the AM process and the usually welded joints, so preliminary research on the 316L GMAW is conducted to find the optimal voltage, wire feed speed (WFS), and travel speed (TS). Taguchi algorithm was used firstly to obtain parameters to achieve the desired higher reinforcement, lower width, and higher aspect ratio (R/W). The voltage of 19 V, WFS of 500 cm/min, and TS of 15 cm/min were obtained as the optimal one among the samples. To further investigate the influence of the parameters and verify the result, a two-factor-three-level full factorial design was carried out, with the consideration of the interaction between factors. At last, the studied parameters were used in the AM process using a GMAW welding robot to verify the reliability.