Experimental Investigation of Constructal Welding Paths Effect onGenerated Entropy in Arc Welding of Thin Plates

Experimental Investigation of Constructal Welding Paths Effect onGenerated Entropy in Arc Welding of Thin Plates

In the present investigation, the effect of different welding paths, which are designed based on the constructal theory and named “constructal welding paths”, on entropy generation during arc welding of thin aluminum plates has been studied. Constructal theory is used as a means to construct new welding paths with less entropy generation which will result in less residual stresses in weldments. The present numerical modelling is validated with temperature distribution results of planned experimental welding of aluminum 1100 plates. The welding velocity is adjusted such that the amount of heat input is equal in all different welding models in present study. Using the temperature distributions, heat fluxes and temperature based thermal characteristics of the weldments, the generated entropy of two constructal welding paths, with different welding sequences, are compared with the simple straight welding path. The experimental results have a good agreement with the numerical temperature distribution at various sections in all models. Finally, the results revealed that the constructal welding paths will decrease the amount of entropy generation in welding. Moreover, the obtained temperature distributions prove that the proposed welding paths could be used as a method to reduce the residual stresses in welding along with the former methods of pre-heating and welding sequences.