EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION ON PEAK TEMPERATURE AND TENSILE STRENGTH DURING PLASMA ARC WELDING OF SS-316

Almost in all the present-day manufacturing products, welding is key process. As we know that this welding will play a key role in the performance of that product. Welding of materials concentrates on thickness of specimen, deposition rate, depth of penetration, heat affected zone, etc. In many products the failure happens in the weld zone due to distortion, residual stress, cold cracking and fatigue damage. So strengthening of this weld zone became a challenge to Manufacturing department. This can be achieved by optimizing the control variables. Plasma arc welding (PAW) is recent technology that is producing striking results in welding. In this investigation performance of PAW was studied for welding SS-316 alloy. As per the common industrial expectation ultimate tensile strength, peak temperature and metallurgical behaviour are investigated during welding with varying conditions of welding current, welding speed. The results indicated that the welding speed is the most significant factor on all responses than welding current.