Mechanical Properties and Microstructural Characteristics of Rotating Arc Gas Metal Arc Welded Carbon Steel Joints

Low carbon steels are widely used in the manufacturing sectors due to their easy weldability than other carbon steels. Usually, the welding processes like shielded metal arc welding (SMAW), and gas metal arc welding (GMAW) are used for welding thick low carbon steel plates. Recently, a novel “rotary arc” or “spin arc” technique is developed with a rotary motion of filler wire that can change the flow of the weld puddle. In this investigation, an attempt has been made to join 12mm thick carbon steel plates made by stationary arc gas metal arc welding (SA-GMAW) and rotating arc gas metal arc welding (RA-GMAW) processes. The objective of present paper is to study the influence of rotating arc on mechanical properties and microstructural characteristics of GMA welded carbon steel joints. The results indicated that the arc rotation of GMAW process yielded 15% improvement in joint efficiency than the conventional stationary arc process.