Double-Electrode Gas Metal Arc Welding

本研究的目的是研究一种创新的起弧机制以及由此产生的双电极气体保护金属极电弧焊（DE-GMAW）新工艺。其方法是将母材部分电弧热的产生和控制与电极熔化部分电弧热的产生和控制分开。 这种单独的产生和控制机构允许电弧热的基底金属部分被控制在期望的水平，以在分离的熔滴和基底金属之间进行适当的结合，同时电弧热的电极熔化部分可以增加以使生产率最大化。该研究涉及传热学、电弧辐射、流体力学、数值模拟、材料、控制系统/理论、电路设计和计算机硬件/软件开发等多个方面，其重要性首先在于建立一个知识库，帮助理解和支持有前途的DE-GMAW工艺的操作和优化，帮助美国制造业提高竞争力，特别是在劳动力成本相对较低的国家。 它还将提供机会，通过具有挑战性的多学科研究和行业合作来培训参与研究生，并帮助PI开发基于控制的制造业的学分和非学分短期课程，这些课程是教育一流的制造工程师和研究生所需的。此外，PI将为两名优秀的本科生确定适当的主题，其中一名或两名来自代表性不足的群体，并为两名特殊的高中生吸引他们进入研究生院并选择工程职业。

The objective of this research is to study an innovative arcing mechanism and the resulting novel process of double-electrode gas metal arc welding or DE-GMAW. The approach is to separate the production and control of the base metal part of arc heat from the production and control of the electrode melting part of arc heat. This separate production and control mechanism allows the base metal part of arc heat to be controlled at a desirable level for an appropriate bonding between the detached droplet and the base metal while the electrode melting part of arc heat can be increased to maximize the productivity. The proposed studies involve heat transfer, arc radiation, fluid mechanics, numerical modeling, materials, control system/theory, circuits design and computer hardware/software development.The importance of this research first lies in that it will establish a knowledge base which can help understand and support the operation and optimization of the promising DE-GMAW process and help US manufacturing industry improve competitiveness, especially with countries where the labor cost is relatively low. It will also provide opportunities to train participating graduate students through challenging multi-disciplinary research and industry-collaborations and help the PI develop credited and non-credit short courses on control based manufacturing which are needed to educate first-class manufacturing engineers and graduate students. In addition, the PI will identify appropriate topics for two outstanding undergraduate students, with one or two from under-represented groups, and for two exceptional high school students to attract them to graduate school and to choose engineering careers.