Effect of Additional Shielding Gas on Welding Seam Formation during Twin Wire DP-MIG High-Speed Welding

For diminishing welding defects such as incomplete penetration, which may easily occur during the twin wire Double Pulsed Metal Inert Gas (DP-MIG) high-speed welding, a novel method using additional shielding gas is introduced in this paper. A branch for the additional shielding gas was specially set near the back end of the protection hood for the DP-MIG nozzle. The constructed gas branch was used for enabling manual intervention in the formation of a high-temperature solid–liquid weld seam just emerging from the nozzle and also for secondary gas protection on the surface of the weld seam. The butt welding test was carried out in the 2205 duplex stainless steel plate and the weld seam was then characterized by a tensile test, metallographic analysis, X-ray non-destructive testing (NDT), hardness analysis, and impact test. The results showed that the introduction of an appropriate amount of additional shielding gas can effectively improve and diminish the unfused weld seam and also improve the mechanical properties such as the tensile properties of the weld joint, the hardness and toughness of the weld joints. Therefore, the introduction of additional shielding gas has further research potential in theory and process practice.