Determination of Optimal Welding Conditions with a Controlled Random Search Procedure

This study proposes a method for determining the near-optimal settings of welding process parameters using a controlled random search (CRS) wherein the near-optimal settings of the welding process parameters are determined through experiments. The method suggested in this study is used to determine the welding process parameters by which the desired weld bead geometry is formed in gas metal arc (GMA) welding. In this method, the output variables (front bead height, back bead width, and penetration) are determined by the input variables (wire feed rate, welding voltage, and welding speed). The number of levels for each input variable and the total search points were determined to be 10 and 1000, respectively.