Deposition rate and dilution are two important variables that affect the quality and economy of any cladding operation. However, due to the opposing nature of both these variables a compromise has to be made between the quality and economy of any cladding operation due to the high dilution associated with GMAW process. A new cladding parameter known as ‘cladding index’ has been proposed for comparing a number of cladding processes for a particular cladding application. This would help in deciding economy and quality of cladding.

An experimental study was carried out for investigating the efficacy of a new variant of GMAW process named as UGMAW process which makes use of a specially designed air-cooled torch for preheating the welding wire independently. Four factor five level central composite rotatable design was used to develop relationship for predicting cladding index, which enables quantifying the direct and interactive effects of four numeric factors.

Since cladding index (CI) was a dependent response variable the overall trend followed by ‘CI’, was the outcome of the interplay between various direct and interaction effects that affected deposition rate and dilution independently.

Optimization was carried to optimize the input process parameters. Mathematical models were also developed.

Mathematical models