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To cite this article: M. P. Prabakaran & G. R. Kannan (2017) Optimization and metallurgical
studies of CO2 laser welding on austenitic stainless steel to carbon steel joint, Ferroelectrics, 519:1,
223-235, DOI: 10.1080/00150193.2017.1362270
Download by: [UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE LIBRARIES] Date: 05 December 2017, At: 17:20
FERROELECTRICS
2017, VOL. 519, 223–235
https://doi.org/10.1080/00150193.2017.1362270
Tamilnadu, India
1. Introduction
The laser beam welding offers many advantages like low and precise heat input with
narrow heat affected zone and low distortion. Laser welding has many potential
benefits compared to other welding process like the unique combination of deeper
penetration, high welding speed, high precision, reliability, high efficiency and high
productivity. ASS and CS are widely used in the fabrication of structural components
in the fusion reactors due to their superior mechanical properties at elevated tempera-
tures, resistance against corrosion and better creep rupture properties. The laser beam
welding attracted nuclear sector applications like fission and fusion reactor compo-
nent fabrications [1]. ASS to CS can be joined by using CO2 laser machine without
using filler materials. The effect of the laser process parameters laser power, welding
speed and shielding gas flow rate on the weld joint tensile strength have been investi-
gated. Sun et al. [2] CO2 laser welding uses around 99% of all TWBs applications.
Laser welding is quick, precise, reliable and able to join a wide variety of materials
varying in thickness. Akbari Mousavi et al [3] discuss metallurgical study of pulsed
Nd: YAG laser welding of AISI 321 and AISI 630 stainless steels. They establish very
fine cellular and dendritic austenite structures achieved in the weld zone. Torkamany
et al. [4] reported the effect of dissimilar laser welding mode on microstructure and
mechanical performance of low carbon to austenitic stainless steel and revealed that
the size of fusion zone and the dilution percentage of low carbon steel is highly
dependent on the transition of laser welding mode from conduction to keyhole.
Anawa et al. [5] investigated the dissimilar LBW of stainless steel and low carbon
steel using statistical methods and reported that the welding speed and laser power
have a significant effect on weld bead characteristics. An orthogonal array (OA) pro-
vides a set of well balanced experiments and Taguchi’s signal-to-noise ratios (S/N),
which is the logarithmic functions of expected output serve as objective functions
for optimization. This assists in data analysis and the prediction of optimum results
[6, 7]. The Taguchi method combined with gray relation analysis solve the multi-
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criteria optimization problems in CO2 laser welding processes. In this technique, the
gray relational grade has been applied to convert multiple quality characteristics into
single performance characteristics [8]. Gray relation analysis combined with the Tagu-
chi method to find the optimum parameter setting for laser micro-drilling of alumina.
The results of the optimal setting revealed that there is remarkable development in
the laser micro-drilling process [9]. Taguchi is the developer of the Taguchi technique
[10]. In this work, the Taguchi method uses a design of L9 orthogonal arrays to
undergo the entire parameter space with only a meager sum of experiments. Taguchi
methods has been extensively utilized in engineering analysis and consists of a pro-
posal of experiments with an objective of acquiring information in a controlled way,
in order to incur data about the weld strength. The metallurgical studies have been
carried out for the optimum weld samples by using an optical microscope and EDX
carried out to measure the nature of the chemical element distribution in the weld
interface.
2. Experimental procedure
2.1. Materials
In this investigation, low carbon steel AISI 1018 to austenitic stainless steel AISI 316 with the
dimension of 100 £ 100 £ 6 mm was used to get square butt joint in single pass weld. The
base material plates are cut by wire cut electro discharge machining; the surface edges are
finely finished and cleaned with suitable chemicals before the welding process. The chemical
composition of these base metals is listed in Table 1 and 2 respectively.
Wt% 0.024 0.28 1.44 0.041 0.017 16.95 2.06 10.09 Balance
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§ 0.1 mm and Repeatability § 0.03 mm. Working range X-Axis 4000 mm, Y-Axis 1500 mm,
Z-Axis 500 mm, C- Axis n £ 3600, B-Axis § 1200 and A-Axis n £ 3600. The plates were
properly positioned and clamped using the special fixture.
Laser welding process parameters such as laser power, welding speed, gas flow rate and focal
distance are affecting the quality of weld samples. In this study, three process parameters,
namely laser power (P), welding speed (S) and gas flow rate (G) were considered for the pur-
pose of analysis [11]. Experiments were designed by the Taguchi L9 OA was composed of
three columns and 9 rows. This design was selected based on three LBW welding process
parameters with three levels each. Before the experiment, preliminary trials were made to
achieve visually acceptable joints. The process parameters employed in the experiment are
listed in Table 3.
the S/N ratios for each control factor had to be calculated. The signals indicated that the
effect on the average responses and the noises were measured by the effect of the deviations
from the average responses, which would designate the sensitiveness of the experimental
output to the noise factors. The suitable S/N ratio must be chosen by using previous knowl-
edge, expertise and understanding of the process. When the target is fixed and there is a triv-
ial or absent signal factor (static design), it is feasible to select the S/N ratio depending on the
goal of the design. In this study, the S/N ratio was chosen according to the criterion the-big-
ger-the-better so as to maximize the responses [12, 13]. The S/N ratio for “bigger is better”
target for all the responses was calculated as following equation (1).
X
1 6 y2
S 6 N D ¡ 10 log10 (1)
n
where y is the average measured tensile strength and n the number of experimental runs, in
this study n D 9. The experimental lay-out for the welding process parameters using the L9
orthogonal array is shown in Table 5 and the responses for S/N ratio are presented in Table 6.
The main effect plots exhibited in Fig. 2 and 3 shows how each factor affects the response
characteristic. This can present the different levels of a factor that affects the characteristic
differently. The main effect plot created by MINITAB plots the characteristic average for
each factor level. The rank 1 in Table 6 indicates that laser power parameter (1) has a stron-
ger effect on the process followed by rank (2) welding speed, which has medium effect, while
rank (3) has minimum effect on the process.
paring model variance with residual variance, which is calculated by dividing the model
mean square by the residual mean square. If the variance values are near to each other, the
ratio will be close to one and it is less likely that any of the factors have a significant effect on
the response. A high F value for a parameter means that the effect of the parameter on the
characteristics is large. The result in Table 7 shows that the highest F value in the process
was obtained for laser power P equal to 2.46. The F value for the speed S was equal to 27.31,
which shows that the speed has a relatively higher effect on the process. Adequate precision
compares the range of the predicted values at the design points to the average prediction
error. The same table also explains the other adequacy measures R2 and adjusted R2. All the
adequacy measures notice that an adequate model has been obtained.
Figure 1. Shows a graphic view of the experimental setup and the laser delivery system with workstation.
[802]/228 M. P. PRABAKARAN AND G. R. KANNAN
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In the GRA, the first step is to perform the normalization of experimental data to make the
range within 0 to 1. This step is called gray relational generating (GRG). The GRG also
expresses the deviation between the experimental value and the ideal value. According to
importance of quality characteristics, there are three criteria for optimization in gray rela-
tional analysis, namely “larger-the better,” “smaller-the-better,” and “nominal-the-best”
[14]. Then overall Grey relational grade is determined by averaging the Grey relational coef-
ficient corresponding to selected responses. The overall performance characteristic of the
multiple response process depends on the calculated Grey relational grade. The optimal fac-
tor setting for maximizing overall Grey relational grade can be performed by Taguchi
method.
Figure 3. Effect of the laser welding parameters on the weld strength S/N ratio.
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In the present analysis, the higher value of weld strength indicates better strength perfor-
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mance, therefore the “higher-the-better” criterion is chosen for weld strength. On the other
hand, the lower value of hardness represents better hardness performance, therefore the
“lower-the-better” is chosen for them. In Grey relational generation, the normalized WS is
corresponding to the higher-the-better (HB) criterion which can be expressed as eq. (2).
where, xi (k) and yi (k) are the sequence after the data preprocessing and comparability
sequence respectively, k D 1 for WS; i D 1, 2, 3…, 9 for experiment numbers 1 to 9. In Grey
relational generation, the normalized WS is corresponding to the lower-the-better (LB) crite-
rion which can be expressed as eq. (3).
where, xi (k) and yi (k) are the sequence after the data preprocessing and comparability
sequence respectively, k D 2 for HD; i D 1, 2, 3…, 9 for experiment numbers 1 to 9. Similarly
the remaining calculations are also made and all the sequences after data preprocessing using
equations (2) and (3) are presented in Table 8.
Now D0i is the deviation sequence of the reference sequence x0 (k) and the comparability
sequence xi (k) the deviation sequence presented in Table 8.
The definition of Grey relational grade in the course of Grey relational analysis is to reveal
the degree of relation between the 9 sequences [x0 (k) and xi (k), i D 1, 2, 3, …,9]. The Grey
[804]/230 M. P. PRABAKARAN AND G. R. KANNAN
Table 8. The sequences of each performance characteristic after data processing and deviation sequences.
Sequences of performance Deviation sequences
relational coefficient ji (k) can be calculated by using equation (5) presented Table 9.
Dmin ¡ cDmax
ξ i ðkÞ D (5)
D0i ðkÞ ¡ cDmax
After averaging the Grey relational coefficients, the Grey relational grade g i can be com-
puted by using equation (6) presented Table 9.
1P
kD1
gi D ξ ðk Þ (6)
n n i
where n is the number of process responses. The higher value of the Grey relational grade
corresponds to an intense relational degree between the reference sequence x0 (k) and the
given sequence xi (k). The reference sequence x0 (k) represents the best process sequence;
therefore, higher Grey relational grade means that the corresponding parameter combina-
tion is closer to the optimum. Since the experimental design is orthogonal, it is then possible
to separate out the effect of each welding parameter on the grey relational grade at different
levels. The mean of the grey relational grade for each level of the welding parameters is sum-
marized and shown in Table 9.
Experiment no. WS ξ i (1) H ξ i (2) Grey relational analysis g i D 1/2 (ξ i (1) C ξ i (2)) Rank
S. no. Process parameters Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Main effect (max-min) Rank
The distribution of dissimilar elements across weld interface and element distribution in
diverse parts is measured by optimum parameters using Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX).
This investigation is carried out for the dissimilar material LCS AISI1018 and ASS AISI 316.
The LBW is done for the two dissimilar materials and the EDAX analysis is done to examine
the distribution and effect of chemical composition between LCS/ASS at the weld interface.
The result shows weld zone with more amounts Fe with an intermediate level of Cr and Ni
in Fig. 5. It provides sufficient mechanical properties and high corrosion resistance of the
joint.
Figure 4. Effect of the laser welding parameters on the hardness S/N ratio.
[806]/232 M. P. PRABAKARAN AND G. R. KANNAN
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polishing in accordance with ASTM E3 standard and etched as per the ASTM E407
procedure. The microstructural examination has been carried out by optical micro-
scope for detailed observations. The macro weld section samples are finely polished
and etched with oxalic acid to examine the microstructure of heat affected zone
(HAZ) and weld zone (WZ). Fig. 6(b), in the base metal AISI316, it can be observed
those ferrite fingers are dispersed in the austenitic matrix. Equiaxed dendrites are
formed due to rapid cooling during weld metal solidification. In the heat affected
zone of AISI316 more chromium carbide precipitation are present. This is due to the
migration of chromium from the parent metal to the HAZ and this happened because
of heat, generated during welding. In Fig. 6(c) at the weld interface the grain size is
coarse due to ferrite failure occurred during the weld. The weld zone is mostly occu-
pied by equiaxed dendrites, which has nucleated at the fusion boundary, and grown
towards the centre of the molten pool. The subsistence of dendritic structure is signif-
icant due to the high cooling rate observed in the laser welded melt pool.
4. Conclusion
The GRA based on the Taguchi method’s response table has been proposed as a way of
studying the optimization of CO2 LBW process parameters for ASS AISI 316/LCS
AISI1018 joint. The optimal welding parameters have been determined by the grey rela-
tional grade for multi performance characteristics that is weld strength and average hard-
ness. The average grey relational grade, it is found that the largest value of the grey
relational grade for laser power, welding speed and gas flow rate are 3300 W, 0.75 m/min
and 22 lit/min respectively. Welding speed is the main factor affecting the response. The
laser power also has a strong effect on the response increasing welding speed leads to a
decrease in response. But the gas flow rate had a small effect on the tensile strength of the
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