Automatic detection of burn-through in GMA welding using a parametric model

This paper addresses the problem of automatic detection of burn-through in weld joints. Gas metal are (GMA) welding with pulsed current is used, and welding voltage and current are recorded. As short-circuitings are common between the welding electrode and the work piece during burn-through, a short-circuit detector is developed to detect these events. To detect another specific characteristic of burn-through-a broadband long-lasting voltage component-this detector is combined with a square-law detector. This second detector is based on a non-linear modification of an autoregressive model with extra input (ARX-model) of the welding process. The results obtained from this compound detector indicate that it is possible to detect burn-through in the welds automatically. The work also indicates that it is possible to design an on-line monitoring system for robotic GMA welding. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited