High temperature arc plasma produced by employing Gas Tungsten Arc (GTA) is highly controllable, since it is stabilized with a shielding gas. Additionally, GTA requires low cost for equipment investment. Therefore, it is widely utilized as a heat source for material processing such as melting, cutting and welding, or decomposition and detoxification of toxic waste. Energy source properties of GTA strongly depend on the physical properties of the shielding gas. For instance, helium (He) gas or admixture of He gas with argon gas is employed as the shielding gas for conditions requiring high productivity in GTA welding process. Since He has low electrical conductivity especially in low temperature range due to high ionization potential, the current channel in He arc plasma is constricted near the arc axis. Consequently, the enhanced heat input intensity into a base material by the constriction increases weld depth and, thus, leads to the high productivity. However, the effect of the admixture on the heat input characteristics to the base metal is still not clear. In this paper, energy source properties of Ar-He GTA are predicted. The properties of arc plasma and the heat input intensity into a water-cooled copper anode are numerically analyzed.
