Abstract
In order to clarify the formative mechanism of weld penetration in an arc welding process, the development of a numerical model of the process is quite useful for understanding quantitative values of the balances of mass, energy and force in the welding phenomena, because there is still a lack of understanding due to the existence of complicated interactive phenomena between the arc plasma and the weld pool. The present paper is focused on a stationary gas tungsten arc (GTA) welding process for simplification, but the whole region of GTA welding, namely, tungsten cathode, arc plasma, work-piece and weld pool is treated in a unified numerical model taking into account the close interaction between the arc plasma and the weld pool. The two-dimensional distributions of temperature and velocity in the whole region of GTA welding process are predicted. The weld penetration geometry is also predicted.
