High Current MIG Welding of Al 5083 Alloy under Ar/He Mixed Gas Shielding

Abstract

Recently, use of thick Al 5083 plate has increased in production of LNG storage tank. In general, multi-pass welding has been used to achieve sufficient penetration in thick plate welding. High current welding which enables high deposition and deep penetration is preferred in thick plate welding because the increase of number of pass increases manufacturing cost and formation of weld defect.In this study, welding characteristics according to various Ar/He shielding gas composition was investigated in high current MIG welding. The bead-on-plate welding and V groove welding were conducted on Al 5083 alloy with a thickness of .25 mm. The effect of shielding gas composition on bead shape was evaluated and proper shielding gas composition was proposed. Also arc stability was examined under selected shielding gas composition. One side-one pass welding experiments were conducted for V groove specimen with a thickness of 25 mm. Mechanical properties and hardness profiles were measured for the V groove specimens.