MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY I SUB CODE: MEC230 Unit 2 Welding (Metal Joining) Processes & Metal Forming Processes

MANUFACTURING TECHNOLOGY I SUB CODE: MEC230 Welding (Metal Joining) Processes

Introduction
Metal Joining or Welding is an important process in manufacturing
For products impossible to manufacture in a single piece Many products are cheaper to fabricate as many individual components and join later Many product have to be dissembled for repairs Automobile assembly, Electronic devices etc

Different parts of a product might have different design requirements

Introduction
Welding which is the process of joining two metallic components Welding can be defined as the process of joining two similar or dissimilar metallic components with the application of heat, with or without the application of pressure and with or without the use of filler metal. Heat may be obtained by chemical reaction, electric arc, electrical resistance, frictional heat, sound and light energy. If no filter metal is used during welding then it is termed as Autogenous Welding Process.

During Bronze Age' parts were joined by forge welding to produce tools, weapons and ornaments etc, however, present day welding processes have been developed within a period of about a century.

History of Welding Process

First application of welding with carbon electrode was developed in 1885 while metal arc welding with bare electrode was patented in 1890. The resistance butt welding was invented in USA in the year 1886. Other resistance welding processes such as spot and flash welding were developed around 1905. With the production of cheap oxygen in 1902, oxy-acetylene welding became feasible in 1903. When the coated electrodes were developed in 1907, the manual metal arc welding (MMAW) process become feasible for production and fabrication of components and assemblies in the industries on large scale.

History of Welding Process

Subsequently other developments are as follows: Thermit Welding (1903) Arc Stud Welding (1918)

Seam Welding of Tubes (1922)

Mechanical Flash Welder for Joining Rails (1924) Extruded Coating for MMAW Electrodes (1926)

Submerged Arc Welding (1935)

Air Arc Gouging (1939) Inert Gas Tungsten Arc (TIG) Welding (1941)

Iron Powder Electrodes with High Recovery (1944)

Inert Gas Metal Arc (MIG) Welding (1948) Electro Slag Welding (1951)

History of Welding Process

Subsequently other developments are as follows: Flux Cored Wire with CO2 Shielding (1954) Electron Beam Welding (1954)

Constricted Arc (Plasma) for Cutting (1955)

Friction Welding (1956) Plasma Arc Welding (1957)

Electro Gas Welding (1957)

Short Circuit Transfer for Low Current, Low Voltage Welding with CO2 Shielding (1957)

Vacuum Diffusion Welding (1959)

Explosive Welding (1960) Laser Beam Welding (1961) High Power CO2 Laser Beam Welding (1964)

History of Welding Process

All welded Liberty' ship failure in 1942, gave a big surprise to application of welding. However, it had drawn attention to fracture problem in welded structures.

Applications of Welding
Most of the welding processes at the time of their developments could not get their place in the production except for repair welding, however, at the later stage these found proper place in manufacturing & production. Presently welding is widely being used in fabrication of pressure vessels, bridges, building structures, aircraft and space crafts, railway coaches and general applications.
It is also being used in shipbuilding, automobile, electrical, electronic and defence industries, laying of pipe lines and railway tracks and nuclear installations etc.

General Applications
Welding is vastly being used for construction of transport tankers for transporting oil, water, milk and fabrication of welded tubes and pipes, chains, LPG cylinders and other items. Steel furniture, gates, doors and door frames, body and other parts of white goods items such as refrigerators, washing machines, microwave ovens and many other items of general applications are fabricated by welding. Pressure Vessels: One of the first major use of welding was in the fabrication of pressure vessels. Welding made considerable increases in the operating temperatures and pressures possible as compared to riveted pressure vessels.

Bridges: Early use of welding in bridge construction took place in Australia. The first all welded bridge was erected in UK in 1934. Due to problems in transporting complete riveted spans or heavy machines necessary for fabrication site to remote areas. Since then all welded bridges are erected very commonly and successfully. Ship Building : Ships were produced earlier by riveting.

Over ten million rivets were used in Queen Mary' ship which required skills and massive organization for riveting, but welding allowed the semiskilled/unskilled labor
Welding found its place in ship building around 1920 and presently all welded ships are widely used. Similarly submarines are also produced by welding.

General Applications

Building Structures:
Arc welding is used for construction of steel building leading to considerable savings in steel and money.

In addition to building, huge structures such as steel towers etc also require welding for fabrication.
Aircraft and Spacecraft: Similar to ships, aircrafts were produced by riveting in early days but now welding is widely used for aircraft structure and for joining of skin sheet to body. Space vehicles which have to encounter frictional heat as well as low temperatures require outer skin and other parts of special materials. These materials are welded with full success achieving safety and reliability.

General Applications
Railways:
Railways use welding extensively for fabrication of coaches and wagons, laying of new railway tracks by butt welding machines and repair of cracked/damaged tracks by thermit welding. Automobiles: Production of automobile components like chassis, body and its structure, fuel tanks and joining of door hinges require welding.

Electrical Industry:
Starting from generation to distribution and utilization of electrical energy, welding plays important role.

Components of both hydro and steam power generation system, such as penstocks, water control gates, condensers, electrical transmission towers and distribution system equipment are fabricated by welding. Turbine blades and cooling fins are also joined by welding.

General Applications
Electronic Industry:
Electronic industry uses welding to limited extent such as for joining leads of special transistors but other joining processes such as brazing and soldering are widely being used. Soldering is used for joining electronic components to printed circuit boards (PCB). Robotic soldering is very common for joining of parts to printed circuit boards of computers, television, communication equipment and other control equipment etc. Nuclear Installations:

Spheres for nuclear reactor, pipe line bends joining two pipes carrying heavy water and other components require welding for safe and reliable operations.

General Applications
Defence Industry: Defence industry requires welding for joining of many components of war equipment. Tank bodies fabrication, joining of turret mounting to main body of tanks are typical examples of applications of welding. Micro-Joining: It employs the processes such as micro-plasma, ultrasonic, laser and electron beam welding, for joining of thin wire to wire, foil to foil and foil to wire, such as producing junctions of thermocouples, strain gauges to wire leads etc. Apart from above applications welding is also used for joining of pipes, during laying of crude oil and gas pipelines, construction of tankers for their storage and transportation.

Classification of joining processes

Liquid state Process Usually involves fusion resulting due to melting of metal particles Filler metals, Eg. Oxy-Fuel Welding, laser welding, chemical, electrical, optical Solid State process

Joining occurs due to external pressure and heat source

Ultrasound, friction, explosion No filler metal is used here

Liquid Solid State process

Braze metal, Soldering, Adhesive bonding Liquid metal applied to solid base metals to join parts

Mechanical means
Fasteners, bolts, nuts screws, seaming etc Easy to dissemble.

Classification of joining processes

Classification of Welding Processes

Welding processes can be classified based on following criteria;
1. Welding with or without filler material. 2. Source of energy of welding. 3. Arc and Non-arc welding. 4. Fusion and Pressure welding.

Classification of Welding Processes

1. Welding with or without filler material.
Welding can be carried out with or without the application of filler material. Earlier only gas welding was the fusion process in which joining could be achieved with or without filler material. When welding was done without filler material it was called autogenous welding'. However, with the development of TIG, electron beam and other welding processes such classification created confusion as many processes shall be falling in both the categories.

Classification of Welding Processes

2. Source of energy of welding.
Various sources of energies are used such as Chemical Electrical Light

Sound
Mechanical energies But except for chemical energy all other forms of energies are generated from electrical energy for welding. So this criterion does not justify proper classification.

Classification of Welding Processes

3. Arc and Non-arc welding.
Arc and Non-arc welding processes classification embraces all the arc welding processes in one class and all other processes in other class. In such classification it is difficult to assign either of the class to processes such as electro-slag welding and flash butt welding, As in electro-slag welding the process starts with arcing and with the melting of sufficient flux the arc quenches While in flash butt welding tiny arcs i.e. sparks are established during the process and then components are pressed against each other. Therefore, such classification is also not perfect.

Classification of Welding Processes

4. Fusion and Pressure welding.
Fusion welding and pressure welding is most widely used classification It covers all processes in both the categories irrespective of heat source and welding with or without filler material. In fusion welding all those processes are included where molten metal solidifies freely While in pressure welding metal solidifies under pressure or semisolid metal cools under pressure. This type of classification poses no problems so it is considered as the best criterion.

Classification of Fusion Welding Processes

Classification of Pressure Welding Processes

Types of Welding: Based on filler metals

1.
2. 3.

Autogenous: No filler metal, electrode acts as filler metal

Homogenous: Filler metal used is same as base metal Heterogeneous: Filler of different metal, soldering, brazing etc.

Important factors governing fusion welding process

Characteristic of heat source Nature of filler material Heat flow characteristics in the joint Gas metal / slag metal (reaction in the fusion zone) Cooling of the fusion zone with associated contraction, residual stresses and crystal changes

Brazing and Soldering

Both brazing and soldering are the metal joining processes in which parent metal does not melt but only filler metal melts filling the joint. If the filler metal is having melting temperature more than 450C (lower than the melting temperature of components) then it is termed as process of brazing or hard soldering.

However, if the melting temperature of filler metal is lower than 450C and also lower than the melting point of the material of components then it is known as soldering or soft soldering.

Brazing and Soldering

During brazing or soldering flux is also used which performs the following functions:
Dissolve oxides from the surfaces to be joined.

Reduce surface tension of molten filler metal i.e. increasing its wetting action or spread-ability.
Protect the surface from oxidation during joining operation. The strength of brazed joint is higher than soldered joint but lower than welded joint. However, in between welding and brazing there is another process termed as braze welding'.

Braze Welding:

Unlike brazing, in braze welding the filler metal has liquidus above 450 C but below the melting point of parent metal, fills the joint like welding without the melting of edges of parent metal. During the operation, the edges of the parent metal are heated by oxy-acetylene flame or some other suitable heat source to that temperature so that parent metal may not melt but melting temperature of filler metal is reached.
When filler rod is brought in contact with heated edges of parent metal, the filler rod starts melting, filling the joint. If edges temperature falls down then again heat source is brought for melting filler rod. The molten filler metal and parent metal edges produce adhesion on cooling resulting into strong braze weld.

Braze Welding:

The braze welding filler material is normally brass with 60% Cu and remaining Zn with small additions of tin, manganese and silicon.
The small additions of elements improve the deoxidizing and fluidity characteristics of filler metal.

Braze Welding:

Unlike brazing, in braze welding the filler metal has liquidus above 450 C but below the melting point of parent metal, fills the joint like welding without the melting of edges of parent metal. During the operation, the edges of the parent metal are heated by oxy-acetylene flame or some other suitable heat source to that temperature so that parent metal may not melt but melting temperature of filler metal is reached.
When filler rod is brought in contact with heated edges of parent metal, the filler rod starts melting, filling the joint. If edges temperature falls down then again heat source is brought for melting filler rod. The molten filler metal and parent metal edges produce adhesion on cooling resulting into strong braze weld.

Brazing:

The most commonly used filler metal is copper base zinc alloy consisting of normally 50-60% Cu, 40% Zn, 1% Ni, 0.7 % Fe and traces of Si and Mn, which is brass and termed as 'spelter'.
In some cases around 10% Ni may also be added to filler alloys. Silver brazing filler metal consists of 30-55% Ag, 15-35% Cu, 15-28% Zn, 18-24% Cd and sometimes 2-3% Ni or 5% Sn. Copper base alloys and Silver brazing alloys are available in form of wire, strip, rods and powders. Borax and boric acid are commonly used fluxes for brazing with copper base filler metals.

Many other commercial fluxes may be available in the form of paste or liquid solution leading to ease of application and adherence to the surface in any position.

Brazing: Various commonly used method of brazing are followings: Torch Brazing

Dip Brazing
Furnace Brazing Infra-red Brazing

Induction Brazing
Resistance Brazing

Fig 3.2: Typical Self Fixturing Brazing Assembly

Video Fig 3.3: Preplaced Brazing Material and filling of joint during Brazing.

Soldering:

The soldering filler metal is called solder.

The most commonly used solder is lead and tin alloy containing tin ranging from 5 to 70% and lead 95 to 30%.

Higher the contents of tin, lower the melting point of alloy. Other filler metal are
Tin-antimony solder (95% tin and 5% antimony), Tin-silver solder (tin 96% and silver 4%), Lead-silver solder (97% lead, 1.5 tin and 1.5 silver), Tin-zinc solder (91 to 30% tin and 9 to 70% zinc),

Cadmium-silver solder (95% cadmium and 5% silver).

These are available in the form of bars, solid and flux cored wires, preforms, sheet, foil, ribbon and paste or cream.

Soldering Methods
Various soldering methods are soldering with
Soldering Irons, Dip Soldering,

Torch Soldering,
Oven Soldering, Resistance Soldering, Induction Soldering, Infra-red And Ultrasonic Soldering.

Flux Residue Treatment:

When brazing or soldering is completed then the flux residues are to be removed because without removal the residues may lead to corrosion of assemblies.
Brazing flux residues can be removed by rinsing with hot water followed by drying. If the residue is sticky then it can be removed by thermal shock i.e. heating and quenching. Sometimes steam jet may be applied followed by wire brushing. Soldering flux residues of rosin flux can be left on the surface of joint, however, activated rosin flux and other flux residues require proper treatment. If rosin residues removal is required then alcohol, acetone or carbon tetrachloride can be used. Organic flux residues are soluble in hot water so double rising in warm water shall remove it.

Adhesive bonding