INVESTIGATION ON MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF GAS METAL ARC WELDED STAINLESS STEEL SPECIMENS USING AND TAGUCHI METHOD

Gas metal arc welding (GMAW) process is most widely used in industries for fabrication works, due to higher productivity. The weld quality depends on the process parameters of GMAW. This research investigates the influence of process parameters affecting the mechanical properties of weldment. Thus, identification of the GMWA process parameters that significantly affect the quality of GMWA processed parts is more important in terms of productivity. Then process environment has been assumed consisting of four variables like welding current, welding voltage, shielding gas, gas flow rate and wire feed rate. Taguchi optimization technique has been applied to determine the optimal limits, which can maximize the GMWA quality in certain environment. Signal to noise ratio (S/N ratio) were calculated for each data and used to obtain the optimum level of every input parameter. The study also shows that the use of the Taguchi Method has productively enhanced on the existing process parameters.