Marangoni convection and weld shape variations in He–CO2 shielded gas tungsten arc welding on SUS304 stainless steel

Bead-on-plate GTA welding (gas tungsten arc welding) on a SUS304 substrate is carried out to investigate the effect of carbon dioxide gas in the helium base shielding on the oxygen content in the weld pool and the weld shape variations. Experimental results show that small addition of carbon dioxide to the shielding gas can precisely adjust the weld metal oxygen content and change the weld shape from wide shallow type to narrow deep one when the weld pool oxygen content is over the critical value, which is from 68 to 82 ppm, due to the Marangoni convection reversal from the outward to inward mode on the pool surface. The weld depth/width ratio increases two times suddenly when the carbon dioxide content in the torch gas is over 0.4 or 0.2% for 1 mm or 3 mm arc length, respectively. The GTA weld shape depends to a large extent on the pattern and magnitude of the Marangoni convection on the pool surface, which is influenced by the active element oxygen content in the SUS304 pool, temperature coefficient of the surface tension (dσ/dT), and the temperature gradient on the pool surface (dT/dr, r is the radius of the weld pool surface). Changing the welding parameters will alter the temperature distribution and gradient on the pool surface, and thus, affect the magnitude of the Marangoni convection and the final weld shape.