USING THE TAGUCHI METHOD TO SELECT WELDING PARAMETERS FOR WELDING OF ALUMINUM ALLOY 5052H32 THROUGH THE GMAW PROCESS

The use of aluminum and its alloys in the most diverse sectors of the automotive industry. Given these needs, the MIG welding process is widely used because of the many advantages such as high versatility, welding position diversity and high welding speed. In this work, the Taguchi method was used to optimize the number of experiments in order to obtain the influence of the control factors on the response variables and to determine the ideal conditions for 5052H32 alloy application in the MIG process with metallic transfer By short circuit. In order to carry out the tests, the welding of the test pieces was carried out in the flat position, varying the following parameters: the type of addition metal, the type of protection gas, the welding speed, Protection gas and the stick-out. The orthogonal matrix L36 (orthogonal matrix of mixed design). In turn, the variables chosen were: deposition rate, thermal input and visual inspection. The combination of the control levels indicated as optimal by the Taguchi method resulted in values for the responses considered adequate for MIG welding, and the parameter of greatest influence for process optimization and welding quality is the welding speed.