Prevention of humping bead associated with high welding speed by double-electrode gas metal arc welding

Manufacturing productivity can be improved by increasing the welding speed. However, humping bead will occur when welding speed is beyond a certain value. An experimental system of double-electrode gas metal arc welding (DE-GMAW) was developed to implement high speed welding and prevent from humping bead formation. The DE-GMAW appropriately partition the heat energy between the wire and the base metal so that higher deposition rate of filler wire and suitable shape and size of weld pool are ensured. The arc images captured during DE-GMAW process were used to optimize the geometric parameters between the gas tungsten arc welding and the gas metal arc welding (GMAW) torches. The main arc and bypass arc integrated well and satisfactory weld bead formation was obtained. Through observing the weld pool behaviors from side view during DE-GMAW process, it was found that the height of both solidified and molten region at the pool tail is almost flat so that no humping bead was formed during DE-GMAW with the welding speed up to 1.7 m/min. The side view images of weld pool in DE-GMAW were compared with those in conventional GMAW, and the reason why DE-GMAW can suppress humping bead is shortly discussed.