Discussion

Many problems were encountered during the experiments. Of the many problems, four were major ones. The first was due to the velocity of the flame from the torch. Because of the velocity of the flame and the height of the wire from the base material, oscillation occured. As the wire was being melted, the velocity of the flame hitting the partially melted wire caused the wire tip to oscillate making constant and accurate deposition of the weld bead erratic.

The second and third problems were wire feeder speed and power synchronization. The speed of the wire feeder had to be set just right along with the power provided to the torch, in order to deposit a constant quality and size of weld. The only experimental solution to this problem was a trial and error method. The optimal settings for wire feeder speed were found to be 10 in/min and power was set at 20 Amperes.

The last major hurdle was that of base material warping. Due to the limitations of the power supply (minimum power which can be provided is 20 Amperes), a good solution was not reachable at this time. As mentioned previously before the power settings were set to 20 Amperes. A better solution would be to obtain a new power supply which could provide the lower power settings.


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