Microstructural Characteristics on Bead on Plate Welding of Stainless Steel using Gas Metal Arc Welding Process

In the present work, bead-on -plate welds were carried out on stainless steel sheets using Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) process. In this present investigation solid wire having 1.2 mm diameter was used as an electrode with direct current electrode positive polarity. Argon was employed for shielding purposes. The fusion zone is generally characterized by a few geometrical features namely bead width, bead height and depth of penetration. The shape of the fusion zone depends upon a number of parameters such as gas flow rate, voltage, travel speed and wire feed rate. Taguchi Technique is applied to plan the experiments. The bead profile parameters such as bead width, bead height and depth of penetration are measured. From the experimental results, the gray relational analysis is applied to optimize the input parameters simultaneously considering multiple output variables. In order to understand the microstructural changes occurring in the weld zone is investigated through the optical microscopy. The hardness measurements were taken across the fusion zone.