Optimization of the Pulsed Current Gas Tungsten Arc Welding Process Parameters for alloy C-276 using the Taguchi Method

In the present work, a Design Of Experiment (DOE) technique, the Taguchi method was employed to bead on welding trials to optimize Pulsed Current Gas Tungsten Arc (PCGTA) welding process parameters of alloy C-276. A L9 orthogonal array of Taguchi design involving nine experiments for four parameters (pulsed current, background current, % on time, pulse frequency) with three levels was used. An analysis of the mean of signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio indicates that the depth of current is influenced significantly by the levels in the Taguchi orthogonal array. The higher the better response category was selected to obtain optimum conditions for depth of penetration. The optimum conditions were found to be 165 A pulse current, 77 A background current, 60% on time and 5 Hz pulse frequency. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) is performed to measure percentage contribution of each factor. The results show that the pulse current was most influencing parameter on the depth of penetration and % on time (23.28%) the next most influencing. Confirmation test was carried out to validate the results of Taguchi analysis; the result shows that there is good match between expected and predicted results.