Horizontal welding of aluminium alloys by soft plasma arc

Horizontal welding plays an important role in manufacture of large and heavy aluminium alloy structures. But there are many problems such as bad weld formation, porosity and low efficiency. Variable polarity plasma arc welding is a low-defect and high-efficiency welding technology, but it has difficulty in horizontal position. The maximum weldable thickness is less than 6.4 mm in single-pass weld. The soft plasma arc was proposed in this article. Horizontal welding of aluminium alloy plates with 8 mm thickness was realized successfully. The joint was free of defects and had excellent mechanical properties. This is a breakthrough in single-pass horizontal welding. Moreover, the characteristic of the soft plasma arc was studied in detail and the fluid flow in weld backside was observed. Finally, the forming mechanism of a stale weld pool was discussed. Results indicated that the arc pressure with the soft plasma arc was lower than that with the ordinary plasma arc. The fluid flow was asymmetric in horizontal position. The forming of a keyhole was realized by the bridging of the molten metals in the upper and lower sides. The weld pool was stable with the soft plasma arc because the maximum diameter of keyhole was bigger than that with the ordinary plasma arc.