An Experimental Investigation and Analysis of PTAW Process

Experiments are conducted to deposit SS304L powders on SS316 plates by plasma transfer arc welding process with varying four input process parameters, namely scanning speed, powder feed rate, stand-off distance, and current. The effects of these four input process parameters on deposition geometry, dilution, and bead continuity are investigated in this study. Attempts have been made to explain the experimental results with only two compound parameters, "energy deposition per length" and "powder deposition per length" instead of four independent input process parameters. It is observed that the variation of dilution is very little when the scanning speed increases from 100 to 600mm/min and other process parameters remain constant. When the powder feed rate increases and other parameters remain constant, initially the dilution decreases rapidly and attains a minimum value which do not change further with increase in powder feed rate. It is also observed that the dilution remains almost constant around 6-9% as the stand-off distance changes from 7 to 11mm and other process parameters remain constant. The formation of nonuniform bead is found to be due to insufficient energy deposition per length per mass of supplied powder.