Wear Behaviour of Cu-Cr-Zr Ternary Alloy for Fin-Tube Resistance Welding Electrode Material

The wear of resistance welding electrodes negatively impacts current density and weld quality, making it essential to study their wear behavior to improve overall welding performance. This paper investigates the wear performance of a newly developed Cu-Cr-Zr alloy using a Pin-On-Disc setup, applying Full Factorial and Box-Behnken design of experiment techniques. The parameters considered were Temperature, Sliding Distance, and Force. Mathematical models for wear rate were developed using DOE method. The models were found to be statistically adequate, with p-values of 0.025 and 0.046 for the Full Factorial and Box-Behnken methods, respectively. The coefficients of determination (R²) for these methods were 0.99 and 0.86 respectively. Statistical ANOVA analysis of the full factorial design revealed that Temperature, Sliding Distance, and Force were significant factors. However, the Box-Behnken Design indicated that only Temperature and Sliding Distance were significant factors. Contour plots and response surface plots for both DOE methods displayed an appreciable level of similarity. Further investigation into in-situ plasma-induced wear on Cu-Cr-Zr electrodes is recommended, as it could aid in designing compact fin-tube economizers.