TY - JOUR
T1 - Alternative materials for gas metal arc welding contact tubes
AU - Goethel, S.
AU - Buerkner, G.
AU - Mayr, P.
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgments This work was part of research project IGF Nr. 15.914B/DVS-Nr. 03.087 of the research coalition “Deutscher Verband für Schweißen und verwandte Verfahren e. V.” (DVS) and was promoted by the program for industrial alliance research (IGF). The financial support by “German Federal Ministry of Research and Technology” via the consortium “AiF” is gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 2013/11
Y1 - 2013/11
N2 - For GMA welding with low-melting filler metals (e.g., Al, Mg), the process behavior is highly affected by instabilities like problems in current transfer. These can be partly reduced by the electronic control behavior of the welding machine or by using new welding technologies. Another approach followed in this work is to examine how the contact tube material influences the process behavior. At present, mainly contact tubes made of copper are used, which have some disadvantages. For example, the contact tube tends towards alloying with the welding wire and the high-thermal coefficient of expansion leads to problems in wire feeding. Within this work, graphite and metal-doped graphite are investigated as potential materials for contact tubes. As a first step, semi-finished products and contact tubes of pure graphite and different doped-graphite compounds were produced. Subsequently, the semi-finished products were examined regarding their electrical and thermal conductivity as well as their hardness. In welding tests, the tendency towards alloying with the welding wire was examined as well as the tool life of the contact tubes. Doping graphite with different contents of copper and silver strongly influences the electrical conductivity. For the hardness, by contrast, doping has only little influence.
AB - For GMA welding with low-melting filler metals (e.g., Al, Mg), the process behavior is highly affected by instabilities like problems in current transfer. These can be partly reduced by the electronic control behavior of the welding machine or by using new welding technologies. Another approach followed in this work is to examine how the contact tube material influences the process behavior. At present, mainly contact tubes made of copper are used, which have some disadvantages. For example, the contact tube tends towards alloying with the welding wire and the high-thermal coefficient of expansion leads to problems in wire feeding. Within this work, graphite and metal-doped graphite are investigated as potential materials for contact tubes. As a first step, semi-finished products and contact tubes of pure graphite and different doped-graphite compounds were produced. Subsequently, the semi-finished products were examined regarding their electrical and thermal conductivity as well as their hardness. In welding tests, the tendency towards alloying with the welding wire was examined as well as the tool life of the contact tubes. Doping graphite with different contents of copper and silver strongly influences the electrical conductivity. For the hardness, by contrast, doping has only little influence.
KW - Brazing fillers
KW - Contact tubes
KW - GMA welding
KW - Graphite
KW - Melting point
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84887246662&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s40194-013-0081-z
DO - 10.1007/s40194-013-0081-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84887246662
SN - 0043-2288
VL - 57
SP - 879
EP - 885
JO - Welding in the World
JF - Welding in the World
IS - 6
ER -