OPTIMIZATION OF ROBO-MIG WELDING PARAMETERS FOR WELDING OF PROPELLER SHAFTS USING TAGUCHI DOE AND ANOVA

Abstract

MIG Welding had been widely used in the industry since decades for welding purposes due to its higher weld deposition rate, Ease of use, weld quality and Longer pass welding capability. These all features of this welding process makes the process most prefered welding process for the welding of propeller/Drive shaft. MIG has been proven as the easiest of all the welding processes that uses arc. In automobile sector, its had been widely used. The process uses continuously fed electrode to form the weld bead and joint formation. The process becomes more robust and efficient when it is automated and robots are inherited with the welding process. The usage and combination of robots with MIG Welding makes it robust but it needs to be optimized and process parameter like welding current, welding voltage, gas flow rate must be of such value that prevents any kind of weld defects to be formed over the weld bead. The most major issue that occurs while welding of propeller shafts is improper weld penetration and pin holes. The main aim of this research was to find the optimized value of all the weld parameters with the help of Taguchi design using minitab software and look for any other types of defects while welding and to rectify them and make the process as robust as possible. Addition of automation in any process makes it free from human errors that may occur.As robots can perform repeatative tasks more efficiently we just have to teach them what they have to do and they have to do that. MIG welding when combined with the robot can perform welding at same point without any deviation in position and weld parameters like arc length. To maintain arc length to be constant in MIG welding is almost impossible for any human being which directly effects the weld quality and penetration. An effort was undertaken to study the effects of using robotic arm for welding gun and effects of various process parameters over the weld bead. When non optimized parameters were used for the welding process there we have seen various defects in the final product.