Estimation of the weld penetration by the surface temperatures measurement in arc welding

Abstract

This study proposed the estimation method of the depth of wed penetration using the experimental measurement of the weld pool shape and the temperature on the front surface during the welding. This method is based on the simple heat conduction calculation, and does not require a flow-field calculation and a heat input information as seen in various welding simulations. In this paper, we first examined the applicability of this method to a bead on plate welding. As a result of application to TIG and A-TIG welding with SUS304 base metal, we obtained the estimated depth with an error of +14∼30% to the actual depth. We investigated this experimental result by the analytical heat conduction model, and found that utilizing the surface temperature with wider area has a possibility to estimate the depth with higher precision.