Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of the Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering (2019) 41:301 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40430-019-1804-x TECHNICAL PAPER Comparing two diferent arc welding processes through the welding energy: a selection analysis based on quality and energy consumption Gulliver Catão Silva 1  · José Adilson de Castro 1  · Roberto Malheiros Moreira Filho 2  · Lecino Caldeira 3  · Moisés Luiz Lagares Jr. 2 Received: 25 August 2018 / Accepted: 24 June 2019 / Published online: 29 June 2019 © The Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering 2019 Abstract The welding seams procedure is widely used in the manufacturing industries for intermediary steps of the steel production or joints of parts of several manufactured products such as automobile, ships and aircrafts. The weld seams can be produced through a number of diferent arc welding processes, but the comparison of two diferent welding processes for the production of a quality weld seam is not trivial, and a quantitative method, which gives comparable parameters, is necessary to be devel- oped. In this work, a method is proposed for comparing between two welding processes through the statistical study of the efects that two welding energy levels have on the selected output variables of each one. A 2 2 full factorial design of experi- ment was applied. The process responses are one-dimensional weld bead geometry (penetration, width and reinforcement), two-dimensional weld bead geometry (penetration area and reinforcement area), dilution and weld bead microstructure. The statistical analyses showed that the methodology presented is capable of determining objective parameters (statistically based) which can be useful in comparing and selecting a suitable process for a specifc application. The comparison of the results between fuxed core arc welding (FCAW) and shielded metal arc welding processes reveled that both produced weld seams with the same penetration. Therefore, in this study, it was recommended the selection of the FCAW process at low energy level, which was able to produce larger width weld seams and improved microstructure quality, saving 30% of the energy consumption. Keywords Welding process · Welding quality · Energy consumption · Design of experiments · FCAW  · SMAW List of symbols α Constant of proportionality for anode or cathode heating β Constant of proportionality for electrical resist- ance heating η Thermal efciency factor A Reinforcement area B Penetration area CTWD Contact tip-to-work distance D Dilution DM Deposited metal DR Deposition rate E Welding energy E c Electrode composition E ex Electrode extension E fs Electrode feed speed E φ Electrode diameter H Heat input I Welding current L Arc length MR Melting rate MTM Metal transfer mode OF Operating factor P Penetration R Reinforcement S Travel speed SG c Shielding gas composition U Welding voltage Technical Editor: Lincoln Cardoso Brandao. * Moisés Luiz Lagares Jr. moises.lagares@engenharia.uff.br 1 School of Industrial and Metallurgical Engineering, Fluminense Federal University, Volta Redonda, Brazil 2 Faculty of Engineering, Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Juiz de Fora, Brazil 3 Federal Institute of Southeast of Minas Gerais State – IF Sudeste MG, Juiz de Fora, Brazil