Abstract
Titanium alloy (Ti−6Al-−4V) is very widely used in the fabrication of advanced industrial equipment, combat vehicles, gas turbines, spacecraft and so on. The preferred welding process for titanium alloy is gas tungsten arc (GTA) welding due to its comparatively easier applicability and better economy. However, welding of titanium alloy leads to grain coarsening at the fusion zone and the heat-affected zone, and this often results in inferior weld mechanical properties and poor resistance to hot cracking. Hence, in this investigation an attempt has been made to refine the fusion zone microstructure of titanium alloy by using a pulsed current GTA welding process instead of a constant current GTA welding process. Further mathematical models were developed by means of a response surface method, which enabled the process parameters to be optimized to achieve a minimum grain size and maximum hardness in GTA welding of the alloy under study. The parameter optimization involved the use of a response surface, contour plots and Kuhn-Tucker conditions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
P. Ravi Vishnu,Weld World 35, 214 (1995).
A. A. Gokhale, A. A. Tzavaras, H. D. Brody, G. M. Ecer, G. J. Abbaschian, and S. A. David,TMS-AIME, p. 223, Warrendale (1983).
G. Madhusudhan Reddy, A. A. Gokhale, and K. Prasad Rao,J. Mater. Sci. 32, 4117 (1997).
H. Yamamoto,Welding international 7, 456 (1993).
K. Prasad Rao,Recent Trends in Advanced Material Processing, p. 176, Annamalainagar (2001).
G. Madhusudhan Reddy, A. A. Gokhale, and K. Prasad Rao,J. Mater. Sci. Tech. 14, 61 (1998).
T. Senthil Kumar, V. Balasubramanian, and M. Y. Sanavullah,Indian Welding Society 3, 29 (2005).
G. E. P. Box, W. H. Hunter, and J. S. Hunter,Statistics for Experimenters, John Wiley and Sons, New York (1978).
D. C. Montgomery,Design and Analysis of Experiments, p. 3, John Wiley and Sons, New York (1991).
T. B. Barker,Quality by Experimental Design, ASQC Quality press, Marcel Dekker (1985).
S. N. Chary,Theory and Problems in Production and Operations Management, Tata Mc-Graw Hill Publications, New Delhi (1995).
Ravindran, Phillips and Solberg,Operations Research, Principles and Practice, John wiley and Sons, New York (1987).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Balasubramanian, M., Jayabalan, V. & Balasubramanian, V. Response surface approach to optimize the pulsed current gas tungsten arc welding parameters of Ti−6Al−4V titanium alloy. Met. Mater. Int. 13, 335–344 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03027891
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03027891