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Numerical study and comparisons of gas tungsten arc properties between argon and
nitrogen
Shanping Lu *, Wenchao Dong, Dianzhong Li, Yiyi Li
Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science, Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 72 Wenhua Road, Shenyang 110016, China
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: In this paper, nitrogen was used as an alternative gas for its ne protection to weld pool and relatively low
Received 7 April 2008 cost, in contrast to widely used argon and helium shielding gases in gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). A
Received in revised form 25 September two-dimensional axisymmetric numerical model from McKelliget et al. was adopted to describe the heat
2008
transfer and uid ow in the gas tungsten arc (GTA) to predict the basic energy source properties of nitro-
Accepted 2 October 2008
Available online 26 November 2008
gen GTA. Simulation results showed that the arc temperature contours, the distribution of heat ux and
current density at the anode agree well with experimental results in literature for both argon-shielded
arc and nitrogen-shielded arc. To solve the model, the nitrogen arc plasma properties, i.e. temperature,
PACS:
51.50.+V
voltage drop and ow elds have been derived. And the distribution of the heat ux, current density
and gas shear stress at the anode with the different arc lengths and welding currents has been studied.
Keywords: Moreover, by comparing with the properties between the argon and nitrogen arc, the results indicate that
Numerical simulation the nitrogen arc is more contraction than that of argon arc under the same arc length and welding current.
Arc plasma Especially, the increasing of the maximum of heat ux and current density at the anode shows that the
Nitrogen nitrogen GTA possessed excellent energy source properties for GTAW in contrast to the argon arc.
Argon 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction models, to investigate the behaviors of the TIG welding arc plasma
in argon. Lago et al. [7] included the solid anode domain in the
As a thermal plasma, the gas tungsten arc (GTA) has been exten- computation, as well as the effects of anode vaporization. Lowke
sively utilized in material processing, such as welding, cutting and and Tanaka et al. [8,9] developed a unied model considering simul-
spraying [1]. Therefore, it is necessary to understand accurately taneously both the electrodes and arc regions. In general, the differ-
the basic phenomena of the arc plasma. However, the arc processing ence between those models is the critical boundary condition at the
needs relatively higher cost compared with the convectional treat- cathode tip. Nevertheless, those models are all proven to give satis-
ment by combustion, since the arc can be produced only by large factory results in regard of the plasma stream variables. Majority of
electric power. For this reason, the optimization of the operating the researches are strengthened on the argon shielding gas.
conditions for the improvement of cost performance has been ex- Energy source properties of GTA strongly depend on the physi-
pected eagerly in the industrial world. Nevertheless, it is experimen- cal properties of the shielding gas. For instance, Tanaka et al. [9,10]
tally difcult to clarify the physical phenomenon in detail and to compared the differences between the argon arc and the helium
optimize the operating conditions of an arc-electrodes system, since arc. In contrast to the argon arc, the current channel of helium
the thermouid eld of an arc is very complex in the extreme condi- arc is constricted due to its low electrical conductivity. Conse-
tions. The numerical modeling is expected to be one of the effective quently, the constriction increases the heat input intensity to the
approaches to solve this problem. In the last two decades, the axi- target materials and, thus, leads to high productivity. However,
symmetric arc model has been widely studied [29]. A very funda- the high cost of helium and the poor arc ignitability limit its appli-
mental work concerned with the study of the plasma arc cations in industry. Therefore, an alternative shielding gas with
congurations is the one of Hsu et al. [2]. McKelliget and Szekely lower cost and better energy source properties is required.
[3] published a mathematical model considering all the important Nitrogen is another prospective gas with good protection, cheep
physics. Their main contribution was to propose a better representa- cost and easy available in industry. Generally, the nitrogen-
tion of heat ux and current density at the anode surface. Choo et al. shielded gas GTA welding is applied to the high nitrogen stainless
[4], Wu et al. [5] and Ramirez et al. [6] provided similar numerical steel. Addition of nitrogen to stainless steels improves the strength,
the corrosion and the fracture toughness of the steels [11]. The ef-
* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +86 24 23971429. fect of the nitrogen in GTA welding on the melting and penetration
E-mail address: shplu@imr.ac.cn (S. Lu). of AZ80 magnesium alloy is investigated by Marya [12], and the
0927-0256/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.commatsci.2008.10.010
328 S. Lu et al. / Computational Materials Science 45 (2009) 327335
Nomenclature
Az, Ar axial, radial electrical vector potential Ta,g temperature at 0.1 mm from the anode (K)
Bh azimuthal magnetic eld (Wb m2) Tanode temperature at the anode surface (K)
Cp heat capacity (J kg1 K1) Tc,g temperature of the gas in the cell closest to the cathode
e electronic charge (C) (K)
I arc current (A) Tcat temperature in the cathode (K)
jz, jr axial, radial current density (A m2) Telec temperature of the electrons (K)
JC cathode current density (A m2) u; v axial, radial velocities (m s1)
K thermal conductivity (W m1 K1) Va anode voltage fall (V)
kb Boltzmans constant (J K1) VC cathode voltage fall (V)
kg thermal conductivity taken at an average temperature z; r axial, radial coordinate (m)
of the gas (W m1 K1) l viscosity (kg m1 s1)
P pressure (Pa) l0 magnetic permeability of free space (H m1)
QA anode heat ux (W m2) q density (kg m3)
Qc conversion contribution to the anode heat ux (W m2) r electric conductivity (S m1)
Qe electron contribution to the anode heat ux (W m2) / potential (V)
Qr radiation contribution to the anode heat ux (W m2) UW material work function (V)
QC cathode heat ux (W m2) a ratio of electrons to plasma temperature at the anode
RC cathode spot radius (m) fall (1.2 [6])
SR radiate source (W m3) d maximum experimentally observed thickness of the an-
T temperature (K) ode fall region (0.1 mm [7])
results show that with diatomic gases such as nitrogen and hydro-
gen, voltage and weld dimensions were even further increased. Yan
et al. [13] simulated the welding temperature patterns of gas tung-
sten arc welding for copper thick plates during Ar, He or N2
shielded arc welding. By comparing the size of the heat-affected
zones, it is the narrowest during N2 arc welding. In addition, Haidar
et al. [14] and Murphy [15] used the spectroscopic and laser-scat-
tering technique to measure the free-burning nitrogen arc,
respectively.
In this paper, by adopting nitrogen, the basic energy source
properties of nitrogen GTA are investigated systematically. Calcu-
lations are carried out using the commercial software FLUENT ver-
sion 6.2.16, adapted for thermal plasmas. First, the arc plasma 2D
conguration is presented and compared with experimental in or-
der to validate the model. Not only the nitrogen arc properties are
predicted, but also the effects of the welding current, arc length on
the heat ux, current density and shear stress at the anode are ana-
lyzed. Finally, the results are compared with those of conventional
argon gas tungsten arc.
The following assumptions are made in the mathematical Using the above assumptions, the conservation equations can
model: be written as follows.
Mass continuity equation is
The arc is steady, radially symmetrical. So the arc can be mod-
o 1 o
eled in a two-dimensional cylindrical coordinate. And the ow qvz qrvr 0 1
is assumed to be laminar. oz r or
Radial momentum conservation equation is
S. Lu et al. / Computational Materials Science 45 (2009) 327335 329
o 1 o oP o ov ov Table 1
qvz vr qrvr vr l rl z Boundary conditions for the welding arc models
oz r or or oz oz or
1 o ovr P vz vr T / Az Ar
2r l jz Bh 2
r or or ab 0 0 3000, Q = Eq. (16) o/
oz JC oAz
oz 0 oAr
oz 0
o/ oAz oAr
bc 0 0 3000 oz 0 oz 0 oz 0
Axial momentum conservation equation is o/ oAz oAr
cd 0 0 3000 0 0 0
or
o/
or or
o 1 o oP o ovz de 1 ovz
0 ovr
0 1000 0 oAz
0 oAr
0
2l
oz oz oz oz oz
qvz vz qrvr vz ef 1 ovz
0 ovr
0 1000 o/
0 oAz
0 oAr
0
oz r or oz oz oz or or or or or
fg 0 0 1000 0 oAz
0 oAr
0
1 o ovz ovr oz oz
rl rl jr Bh 3 ga ovz
or 0 ovr
or 0 oT
or 0, Q = Eq. (21) o/
or 0 oAz
or 0 oAr
or 0
r or or oz
The unit for pressure P, velocity vz ; vr , temperature T and potential / is atm, m/s, K
Energy conservation equation is and V, respectively.
o 1 o o k oh 1 o k oh
qvz h qrvr h r jz J C r < RC 13
oz r or oz C p oz r or C p or
2 2
jz jr 5 kb jz oh jr oh jz 0 r > RC 14
SR
r 2 e C p oz C p or
where the radius of the cathode spot is dened as
4 s
The last three terms in Eq. (4) represent the Joule heating, the radi-
I
RC 15
ation losses and the diffusive transport of enthalpy due to the elec- pJC
tron ux, respectively.
McKelliget and Szekely [3] found that a single value of the cathode
Current continuity equation is
current density gave good results, compare with experimental mea-
o o/ 1 o o/ surements, for different values of welding current and arc length. In
r rr 0 5
this paper, JC is assumed to be 6.5 107 A/m2. The electric potential
oz oz r or or
is assumed to be iso-potential (zero) at the anode (regions fg). This
According to Ohms law, the current density components are as is based on the assumption that the conductivity in the metal is
follows much higher than that in the plasma, implying that the variation
o/ of the electric potential in the metal is much less than that in the arc.
jz r 6
oz
2.4. Source terms used at the cathode and anode regions
o/
jr r 7
or 2.4.1. Cathode region
In order to obtain the magnetic eld, the potential vector method is It was shown by Hsu and Pfender [16] that in the cathode
adopted [7]. boundary layer the plasma is not in LTE condition due to a differ-
ence in temperature between electrons and heavy particles. For
! ! !
r 2 A l0 j 8 thermionic cathodes, McKelliget and Szekely [3] suggested that a
positive source term could be used to account for the energy used
so
in the cathode boundary layer to ionize the plasma and thereby
o2 Az 1 o oAz cause a drop in the electric potential.
2
r l0 jz 0 9 This heat source for the arc column can be expressed as
oz r or or
Q C jJ C jV C 16
o2 Ar 1 o oAr Ar
r 2 l0 jr 0 10 and the cathode voltage fall V C , can be described as
oz2 r or or r
5 kB
From them we can deduce the azimuthal magnetic induction VC T elec 17
2 e
! ! ! where T elec is approximated by the following relationship [17]
B r A 11
Therefore T elec T c;g T cat 18
oAr oAz
Bh 12 2.4.2. Anode region
oz or
In this investigation, the following four different mechanisms
for the heat transfer from the arc to the anode are considered:
2.3. Boundary conditions (1) heat ux due to the electron ow, (2) conduction from the plas-
ma, (3) radiation from the plasma. Heat loss due to vaporization in
In order to solve the transport equations for the calculation do- the anode boundary is neglected.
main, boundary conditions need to be specied. A complete listing The heat ux to the anode due to the ow of electrons may be
of boundary conditions for the welding arc is presented in Table 1. expressed as
Domain boundaries are lines linked by points expressed by capital
letters according to the notation used in Fig. 1. 5 kB
Q e jz aT a;g T anode jz UW V a 19
The most critical boundary condition is the electrical potential / 2 e
at the cathode. Here, the boundary condition is approximated by For steel, the work function plus the anode fall UW V a is equal to
assuming that the cathode current density, J C emitted from the 6.76 V [6].
cathode normal to the surface is constant inside the cathode spot The heat transferred by conduction from the arc is calculated as
radius, RC (regions ab), and is zero outside, i.e. follows
330 S. Lu et al. / Computational Materials Science 45 (2009) 327335
T a;g T anode To solve the above equations, the commercial uid dynamics
Q c kg 20
d software FLUENT V6.2.16 is used. FLUENT is a computer program
Ushio [18] found that the contribution of plasma radiation Qr to the based on the nite volume method that models uid ow, heat
anode is less than 5% of the total heat input. So Qr is taken as 3% transfer and so on.
here. User-dened subroutines are written to handle some special
In conclusion, the total energy from the arc to the anode is rep- boundary conditions, special source terms appearing in each equa-
resented as follows tion, as well as the extra scalar equations needed for the electro-
QA Qe Qc Qr 21 magnetic variables [21]. These subroutines are added to the
program to solve the welding arc problem.
The face values of scalar variables are also required for the con-
2.5. Physical properties
vection terms and their values are gained from interpolation. First
order upwind scheme was adopted to calculate the face values of
Physical properties, namely density, viscosity, thermal conduc-
the scalar variables, since the problem was convection-dominated
tivity, specic heat and electrical conductivity of argon and nitrogen
ow. For pressure and velocity coupling, the SIMPLE algorithm was
are treated as functions of temperature. All these properties are ta-
employed [22].
ken from the tabulated data of Boulos et al. [19], as shown in
For the solution algorithm, the segregated solver was selected.
Fig. 2ae. The radiation loss term SR for argon in the energy conser-
This means that the segregated approach solves a single variable
vation equation is taken from experimental data of Evans and Tankin
eld by taking all control volumes at the same time into consider-
[20], as shown in Fig. 2f. In this study, the radiation loss term for ar-
ation. It then solves for the next eld variable by again considering
gon is used in the nitrogen calculations, due to a lack of sufcient
all control volumes at the same time and so on [21].
data for nitrogen. It is important to note the highly nonlinear proper-
ties of the argon and nitrogen arc with respect to temperature.
3. Results and discussion
2.6. Numerical method
3.1. Validation
The whole calculation domain as shown Fig. 1 is discretized
with a quadrilateral, nonstructured grid. The nodes are clustered As was stated in the aforementioned introduction, the extensive
near the electrodes surfaces and the arc axis. The smallest grids experimental welding arc studies are available in the literature and
are the thickness of the anode fall region (0.1 mm 0.1 mm). can be used to validate the predictions of the current arc model.
Fig. 2. Physical properties of argon and nitrogen as a function of temperature: (a) density [19], (b) specic heat [19], (c) viscosity [19], (d) thermal conductivity [19], (e)
electrical conductivity [19], and (f) radiation loss [20].
S. Lu et al. / Computational Materials Science 45 (2009) 327335 331
Fig. 2 (continued)
Fig. 3. Comparison between experimental and calculated temperature contours in Fig. 5. Comparison between experimental and calculated radial proles of the
the welding arc for argon arc. The experimental results (200 A at 10 mm arc length) plasma temperature of a 200 A nitrogen arc at two axial distances from the cathode
are from Hsu et al. [2]. (a) 1 mm and (b) 3 mm. The experimental results are from Murphy [15].
332 S. Lu et al. / Computational Materials Science 45 (2009) 327335
by the isotherm of 11000 K and 8000 K is clearly observed for In summery, these gures provide condence in the arc model
both the argon arc and the nitrogen arc. The comparisons be- and which can be utilized to investigate other the properties of
tween calculated and measured temperature contours show a the argon and nitrogen arc.
fairly good agreement when the temperature is above 12000 K.
The difference between the experimental and the calculated data 3.2. Nitrogen arc properties
for the 12000 K temperature distributions could be due to several
reasons. The most probable one is due to the LTE assumption Nitrogen is an easily obtained gas with good protection to weld
used in the present study. It is known that the outer fringes of pool. Also it is cheap compared with argon or helium shielding gas.
the arc are not in LTE, which cause the experimental and calcu- It is a prospective shielding gas for arc welding especially for cop-
lated results to be a little off in the arc fringes. per and high nitrogen steel. Systematically simulation works on
Figs. 5a and b show that the calculated radial proles of the the nitrogen arc are studied here, and compared with the argon arc.
plasma temperature of a welding current 200 A, arc length Six major properties of the arc, i.e. maximum temperature
5 mm nitrogen arc at two axial distance, 1 mm and 3 mm, from T max , maximum axial velocity vmax , electric potential difference
the cathode, and compared with the experimental results [15]. (V), anode pressure difference (P), maximum anode current density
It can be seen that the experimental measurements and the J a; max and the maximum anode heat ux Q a; max for nitrogen arc
calculated results agree well. Fig. 5b shows the difference be- are summarized as shown in Table 2.
tween experimental and calculated data when the radial distance The welding current and electrode tip work distance (arc
is over 4 mm. The reason could be the LTE assumption as previ- length) are two main welding parameters strongly affecting the
ously mentioned. weld pool shape, volume and welding productivity to which paid
Additional comparisons between the present calculated results attention by the welding researchers and engineers. However,
and corresponding experimental data from Nestor [23] at 200 A the real reason working the weld pool variable is from the arc
welding current and 6.3 mm arc length are presented in Fig. 6 properties affected by the shielding gas and welding parameters.
including the anode heat ux and current density for argon arc. For gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), the welding current is often
It can also be seen that a reasonable agreement is obtained below 400 A, and the arc length is generally between 2.0 and
between the present predicted results and the experimental data. 6.0 mm. In this study, the effects of welding current and arc length
on the nitrogen gas tungsten arc are systematically studied.
Figs. 7 and 8 show the radial variation of the anode heat ux
and current density for nitrogen arc at 200 A for three different
arc lengths of 2.0 mm, 3.0 mm and 5.0 mm, respectively. As the
arc length increases, the maximum of heat ux and current density
at the anode decreases, and its distribution radius increases. The
increase of arc length can lead to the extension of the arc distribu-
tion on the anode surface. As the conductive cross-sectional radius
Table 2
Calculated arc parameters at 2.0 mm and 5.0 mm arc lengths.
Fig. 6. Comparison between experimental and calculated anode heat ux (a) and
current density (b) distributions for argon arc. The experimental results are from Fig. 7. Effect of arc length on the anodic heat ux with welding current I = 200 A for
Nestor [23]. nitrogen arc.
S. Lu et al. / Computational Materials Science 45 (2009) 327335 333
Fig. 8. Effect of arc length on the anodic current density with welding current Fig. 11. Effect of arc length on the shear stress with welding current I = 200 A for
I = 200 A for nitrogen arc. nitrogen arc.
Fig. 9. Effect of welding current on the anodic heat ux at arc length L = 5.0 mm for Fig. 12. Comparison of axial velocity between argon and nitrogen arc under
nitrogen arc. different welding current.
Fig. 10. Effect of welding current on the anodic current density at arc length Fig. 13. Comparison of the anodic heat ux between argon and nitrogen arc at arc
L = 5.0 mm for nitrogen arc. length L = 5.0 mm and welding current I = 200 A.
334 S. Lu et al. / Computational Materials Science 45 (2009) 327335