Proposal for a Modified Fowler-milne Method to Determine the Temperature Profile in Tig Welding at Low Currents

Abstract. It is possible to assess the thermal efficiency of welding shielding gases by means of the arc temperature field analysis. Since this approach opens a remarkable study field to assess different shielding gases, giving support for dealing with advantages and disadvantages of commercial gas mixtures, there is a research line under development, which goal is to find techniques to measure arc temperatures. This work describes a proposed method containing different procedures to quantify plasma jet temperature profiles from experimental data. This method was applied on data taken from TIG welding arc, at low current (40 A). This low current was selected to contrast to and amplify the current literature focus, i.e., high currents. The experiment was conducted using emission spectroscopy, picking punctual luminescence from the plasma through an optic system. The TIG arc was stroked on a water-cooled copper plate and shielded by pure argon. The temperature field was determined through the modified Fowler-Milne method. The introduced modification aimed to overcome the limitation that this method has for low radiation intensity presents in low current arcs: the Fowler-Milne method has an intrinsic threshold of 10,000 – 25,000 K. For a 40-A arc, the lower 10,000-K limiting isotherm is reached close to the cathode, restricting the analysis field, especially for the anode region. The proposed modification suggests a linear distribution of the particle density instead of a Maxwellian one, at temperature below 10,000 K. The experimental temperature field was compared to a previous publication that deals with numerical simulation and the results were found in good agreement, what indicates the supposition of a linear distribution it is not far from the reality.