Investigating the effect of electrode preheating in novel water-cooled advanced submerged arc welding process

In this paper, a novel developed water-cooled advanced submerged arc welding (WASAW) process has been designed and established. The developed WASAW process can be utilized for higher preheating currents at 100% duty cycle. Subsequently, a multi-pass welding investigation has been carried out on AISI 1023 steel plates as per the L 8 Taguchi orthogonal array by varying WASAW input factors namely voltage (V), wire feed rate (WFR), welding speed (WS), nozzle to plate distance (NPD), and preheat current (I), respectively. The relationships between selected WASAW process parameters and responses namely tensile strength (TS), yield strength (YS), percentage elongation (E), and weld metal hardness (H) has been established with statistical regression analysis and ANOVA method. Then, the effect of each input factor and their interactions on selected responses was analyzed using single effect and 3D surface plots. Lately, the fractography analysis of tensile fractured surfaces has been carried out to study the failure in all weld metals. Finally, Jaya and genetic algorithms have been applied to optimize the WASAW performance. Overall, the outcomes reveal that developed WASAW process yields a substantial enhancement in the mechanical behavior of all weld metals.