Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology 27 (7) (2013) 2107~2113

www.springerlink.com/content/1738-494x

DOI 10.1007/s12206-013-0523-y

Predicting the combined effect of TiO2 nano-particles and welding input parameters on the hardness of melted zone in submerged arc welding by fuzzy logic
Masood Aghakhani1,*, Mohammad Reza Ghaderi1, Maziar Mahdipour Jalilian1 and Ali Ashraf Derakhshan2
1

Welding Research Center, Mechanical Engineering Department, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran 2 Polymer Research Center, Chemical Engineering Department, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran (Manuscript Received March 4, 2012; Revised January 13, 2013; Accepted February 9, 2013)

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Abstract
Submerged arc welding (SAW) is a high-quality arc welding process used in heavy industries for welding thick plates. In this process, selecting appropriate values for the input parameters is required for high productivity and cost effectiveness. A very important weld quality characteristic affected by welding input parameters is the hardness of melted zone (HMZ). This paper reports the applicability of fuzzy logic (FL) to predict HMZ in the SAW process which is affected by the combined effect of TiO2 nano-particles and welding input parameters. The arc voltage, welding current, welding speed, contact tip-to-plate distance, and TiO2 nano-particles were used as input parameters and HMZ as the response to develop FL model. A five-level five-factor central composite rotatable design (CCRD) was used in the experiments to generate experimental data. Experiments were performed, and HMZs were measured. The predicted results from FL were compared with the experimental data. The correlation factor value obtained was 99.99% between the measured and predicted values of HMZ. The results showed that FL is an accurate and reliable technique for predicting HMZ because of its low error rate.
Keywords: Submerged arc welding; Hardness of melted zone; Fuzzy logic; TiO2 nano-particles; Welding input parameters; Central composite rotatable design ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Introduction
Nanotechnology has been established as the research field that will lead to the next generation of breakthroughs in the science and engineering sectors. Macwan et al. [1] defined nano-materials as particles with diameters ranging from 1nm to 100 nm. Chen et al. [2] reported that the small size and large surface and volume effects of nano-particles offer unique mechanical, electrical, magnetic, optical, and physiochemical properties, thereby making them suitable candidates for different applications in defense, electronic, aerospace, and chemical industries. Chen et al. [2] used nano-marbles instead of micro marbles in the flux coating of a shielded metal arc welding electrode, the hardness and wear resistance of the weldments increased. Fattahi et al. [3] reported that the impact toughness of AWS E6010 weld metal improved when TiO2 nano-particles were added to the electrode coating. Pal and Maity [4] investigated the effect of nano sized TiO2 particles on the mechanical properties of AWS E11018M-type electrode, and concluded that the charpy impact property was
Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 831 4274538, Fax.: +98 831 4283263 E-mail address: aghakhani@razi.ac.ir Recommended by Associate Editor Young Whan Park KSME & Springer 2013
*

improved because the Ti content was varied in the weld deposit. Aghakhani et al. [5] investigated the effect of TiO2 nano-particles on the weld bead width in submerged arcwelding (SAW) process, and concluded that the bead width initially increased upon the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles, and then decreased thereafter. Aghakhani et al. [6] reported that weld penetration was affected by the addition of TiO2 nanoparticles to the weld pool. Despite of the aforementioned studies, scientific investigations on the function of nano-materials in the welding processes remains to be elucidated. The knowledge on how welding input parameters affect the hardness of the melted zone (HMZ) is important because it can be applied in the automatic and semi-automatic control of the SAW process, where a proper selection of input parameters is essential for high productivity and cost effectiveness. Thus, several studies have been conducted to understand the relationship between the SAW input parameters and HMZ [710]. Yang [7] reported that HMZ increased with decreasing heat input. Hall [8] reported the effect of welding speed on HMZ in the SAW process. Kolhe and Datta [9] investigated the effect of different welding input parameters on the hardness of the weld metal, and concluded that weld hardness was affected by the variations in the heat input. Hashemi and Mohamadyani [10] reported the effect of welding input pa-

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rameters on the hardness of the fusion zone of API X65 steel, and concluded that the hardness of fusion zone was affected by the heat input variation. This paper reports the combined effect of the TiO2 nanoparticles and the welding input parameters on HMZ in the SAW process. First, the TiO2 nanoparticles cannot be mixed with the flux because of its nano grain size, and cost. Moreover, the idea was to introduce the TiO2 nano particles directly into the weld puddle, thus the nano-particles were first dispersed in ethanol, and then obtained paste was applied on the surface of mild steel plates with different thicknesses, based on the design matrix. This process was performed, before the actual welding operation. For collecting the experimental data, a five-level five-factor central composite rotatable design (CCRD) was used in the experiments. The arc voltage (V), welding current (I), welding speed (S), contact tip-to-plate distance (C), and TiO2 nano-particles thickness (F) were considered as input parameters and the HMZ as the response. Experiments were performed and the HMZ values were measured. The fuzzy logic (FL) model of the HMZ was then designed. The main effects of the input parameters based on FL model were presented through two-dimensional plots by using FL surface viewer. The results show that the FL model is accurate and reliable in predicting the HMZ because of its low error rate.

Fig. 1. Model representation of the HMZ by using FL.

relational model, where each rule is represented by an IFTHEN relationship. The model structure is manually developed, and the final model is neither trained nor optimized. The output from a Mamdani model is a fuzzy membership function based on the created rules. Given this approach is not exclusively reliant on a data set, a generalized model for effective future predictions can be obtained even if ones expertise of the system is moderate [18]. Each fuzzy expert system model is developed through three stages, namely, fuzzification, inference engine, and defuzzification, as depicted in Fig. 1.

4. Experimentation and data collection 2. Submerged arc welding

SAW is an arc welding process widely used in heavy fabrication industries especially in semi-automatic or automatic form. SAW is used in fabricating water and petrochemical pipelines, and gas cylinders, ship building and repair, and hardfacing applications in the mining, mineral processing, and power industries, because of its high weld quality, reliability, deep penetration, high deposition rate, and a smooth bead [11, 12]. SAW is a process that melts and joins metals by heating them with an arc placed between a consumable wire electrode and the metals. The arc is shielded by a molten slag and granular flux [12]. Design of experiments is a powerful technique used to explore new processes and to gaining new knowledge on existing processes to achieve world-class performance. This technique has been employed in various applications in many engineering processes [19]. In the present paper, V, I, S, C, and F were considered as the input parameters, and HMZ as the response. The working levels of each input parameter were decided upon by using the so-called one factor at a time technique or the classical method, and then by inspecting the weldments for a smooth appearance without any visible defects, such as surface porosity, undercut, so on. The coded values were calculated from the following relationship: Xi=2[2X-(Xmax+Xmin)]/ (Xmax-Xmin) (1)

3. Fuzzy logic
FL is a technique that allows expressing, evaluating, and simplifying complexities with regard to the relationships in a process by describing the dependencies between responses and input parameters in a linguistic form. FL is also called a linguistic model because both the antecedent and consequent are fuzzy propositions [13]. This concept was introduced by Zadeh [14]. In FL, fuzzy numbers are assigned to parameters to represent ambiguities. This technique has been widely used to model experiments [15, 16]. This method uses fuzzy sets and approximate reasoning to find an overall good enough solution to a particular problem domain without using detailed first-principle knowledge of the said domain. Fuzzy rules may be formulated based on expert knowledge of the system [17]. The Mamdani scheme used in this paper is a type of fuzzy

where Xi is the required coded value of a parameter "X". X is any value of the parameters from Xmin to Xmax, and Xmin and Xmax are the lower and the upper levels of the input parameters, respectively. The input parameters and their corresponding coded levels are given in Table 1. A five-level five-factor CCRD was employed in the experiments to generate the experimental data, as shown in Table 2. Nano material used: Titanium dioxide P 25, with an average primary particle size of about 21 nm and a specific surface of 50 m2/g. Polarity: Direct current reverse polarity Filler wire: 3.2 mm copper-coated electrode in coil form

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Table 1. Input parameters and their ranges. Parameter Arc voltage Welding current Welding speed Contact tip-to-plate distance TiO2 nano-particles Notation V I S C F Units -2 Volts Amp mm/min mm mm 24 500 300 30 0.00 -1 26 550 350 32.5 0.25 Coded values 0 28 600 400 35 0.50 +1 30 650 450 37.5 0.75 +2 32 700 500 40 1.00

Table 2. Design matrix. No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 V 0 0 -1 -1 1 0 1 0 -1 1 -1 0 0 -1 1 0 0 -1 0 1 1 1 -2 0 1 0 -1 -1 0 2 0 0 I 0 0 1 -1 1 2 1 0 -1 1 -1 0 0 -1 -1 0 0 1 0 1 -1 -1 0 0 -1 0 1 1 0 0 0 -2 S 0 -2 1 1 -1 0 1 0 -1 -1 -1 0 0 1 1 0 0 -1 0 1 -1 -1 0 0 1 0 -1 1 2 0 0 0 C 0 0 -1 1 1 0 -1 -2 -1 -1 1 0 0 -1 1 0 0 1 0 1 -1 1 0 0 -1 0 -1 1 0 0 2 0 F 0 0 1 1 -1 0 -1 0 1 1 -1 0 -2 -1 -1 0 0 1 2 1 -1 1 0 0 1 0 -1 -1 0 0 0 0

Table 3. Chemical composition of the base metal. Element %W Cr 0.031 P S Si Ti Mn C Fe

0.007 0.01 0.024 0.002 0.417 0.113 Balance

Fig. 2. Experimental set-up.

(DIN S1) Type of joint: Single bead-on-plate. Flux: Agglomerated aluminaterutile type Electrode-to-work angle: 90 Specimen dimensions: 150 mm 50mm 15 mm

Fig. 3. Weld-melted zone.

Thirty-two specimens were prepared, and their surfaces were thoroughly cleaned. TiO2 nano-particle paste was then applied on each mild steel plate based on the design matrix before the actual welding operation. Welding was carried out in a random order. Fig. 2 shows the SAW set- up and the TEM micrograph of titanium dioxide P 25. The chemical

composition of the base plate is given in Table 3. Each sample was cut transverse to the welded joint, and each section included the melted zone, the heat-affected zone, and the unaffected base metal. Sectioning was conducted using an abrasive cutter. The samples were prepared via usual metallurgical polishing methods, and were etched with standard 2% Nital. The profile of the weld bead shape was traced using an optical microscope. A schematic of the weld-melted zone is shown in Fig. 3.

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Table 4. Selected structure of the proposed fuzzy model. Type of fuzzy inference system (FIS) Inputs / Output Input membership function types Output membership function types Number of input membership functions Number of output membership functions Rules weight Number of fuzzy rules And method Implication method Aggregation method Defuzzification method Mamdani 5/1 Triangular Triangular 5/5/5/5/5 27 1 27 Min Min Max Centroid

Fig. 4. Schematic of a simple triangular membership function.

5. Development of fuzzy model

The most commonly used simple membership function is the triangular one [20], which is defined as follows: y = trimf(x, parameters) y = trimf(x, [a b c]). (2) (3)

(4) Applying the implication method Subsequent to fuzzifying the input parameters and applying the necessary fuzzy operators, the result must be applied to the consequent. This process is called implication. (5) Aggregating all outputs After applying the implication method, the aggregation process takes place. Aggregation is the process of combining the fuzzy sets that represent the outputs of each rule into a single fuzzy set. (6) Defuzzification The final step is defuzzification, or the process of converting a fuzzy set into a single value. The structure of the fuzzy model used in this paper is described in Table 4. Five symmetric triangles were to build the input membership functions. In this study, the peak of each triangle, namely very low (mf1), low (mf2), medium (mf3), high (mf4), and very high (mf5) indicate the different levels of input parameters in the design matrix. Twenty seven symmetric triangular membership functions were used in the range of zero to 26, where 0, 1, 2, , 26 indicate the locations of triangle peaks, to establish the output membership functions. Subsequently, the range of zero to 26 was marked as 146.63 to 184.39 Vickers hardness number (HVN), respectively. With this sort of replacements, we therefore obtained 27 symmetric triangular membership functions for HMZ. Figs. 5(a)-5(f) show the membership functions for the input parameters and the response, respectively. Several of the 27 rules created for the present fuzzy model are shown in Table 5.

For each input parameter, a triangular membership function (MFs) is drawn. The triangular curve is a function of a vector x, and depends on three scalar parameters:, namely, a, b, and c, as given by f(x,ai,bi,ci) = max(min((x-ai)/( bi-ai,),( ci -x)/( ci - bi)),0). (4)

Parameters a, and b are located at the feet of the triangle, and parameter c is located at the peak, as shown in Fig. 4. The following steps must be considered to start FL: (1) Choosing a fuzzy inference system (FIS) The first step is to choose a FIS to map out the input characteristics to the input membership functions, the input membership function to a set of fuzzy if- then rules, the fuzzy rules to a set of output characteristics, the output characteristics to the output membership functions, and finally, the output membership function to a single-valued output or a decision associated with the output [21]. (2) Fuzzification of input parameters The second step is to take the input values and fuzzifying them through the fuzzification operators. (3) Applying the fuzzy operators In case when input is more than one, the use of fuzzy operators will be inevitable because initial parts of each fuzzy rule must be connected to one another through the necessary fuzzy operators to determine the output values between 0 and 1.

6. Results and discussion

The main effects of the five input parameters on HMZ based on FL predictions are graphically shown in Figs. 6(a)6(e).

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Table 5. Several rules involved in the FL model. No 1 2 3 4 5 Rules If (V is mf3), (I is mf3), (S is mf3), (C is mf3), and (F is mf3) then (HMZ is mf9) If (V is mf2), (I is mf2), (S is mf4), (C is mf4), and (F is mf4) then (HMZ is mf16) If (V is mf3), (I is mf3), (S is mf3), (C is mf1), and (F is mf3) then (HMZ is mf5) If (V is mf4), (I is mf2), (S is mf4), (C is mf4), and (F is mf2) then (HMZ is mf21) If (V is mf2), (I is mf4), (S is mf2), (C is mf2), and (F is mf2) then (HMZ is mf1)

Fig. 6. Fuzzy predicted melted zone hardness as a function of the input parameters.

Fig. 5. Membership functions of the input parameters and response.

The melted zone hardness decreases slightly with increasing arc voltage, as shown in Fig. 6(a). This decrease can be attributed to the fact that the time for solidification was reduced at a higher energy input because the arc voltage was increased. This slow cooling promotes the formation of larger grains, and consequently, a decrease in HMZ. HMZ decreases with increasing welding current, as shown in Fig. 6(b). The weld metal microstructure is mainly controlled by the cooling rate. Increasing the welding current increases the heat input into the weld metal. At a higher heat input, the cooling rate slows down. Thus, the time for solidification increases, thereby yielding coarse grains. Coarse grains in the microstructure indicate generally lower hardness. Fig. 6(c) shows that HMZ decreases with increasing contact tip-to-plate distance. This increase can be due to the resistance heating of the electrode, which increased the heat input into the weld pool and subsequently reduced the solidification time and decreased the hardness. Another reason might be due to the low basicity index of the flux with higher viscosity, which in turn increased the tendency of heat concentration in a narrow zone, low thermal conductivity of the TiO2 nano particles, and covering of the melted zone with a huge lump of flux. HMZ increases with increasing welding speed as shown in Fig. 6(d). This increase could be due to the fact that an increase in welding speed reduced the heat input into the workpiece, which in turn increased the cooling rate. This increase in cooling rate yielded fine grains, thereby indicating higher hardness. The effect of TiO2 nano-particles on HMZ is complicated. TiO2 nano-particles with a thickness of up to 0.25 mm did not show any significant effect on HMZ, as shown in Fig. 6(e) In this study, the quantity of TiO2 nano-particles in the melted zone may not have been sufficient enough to affect its hard-

Fig. 7. Electrical conductivity of TiO2.

ness. However, exactly at a thickness of 0.25 mm, HMZ slightly increases and remains almost constant until the thickness was less than 0.75 mm. At an exact thickness of 0.75 mm HMZ sharply decreases but becomes constant thereafter. The suggested mechanism, which could explain these increasing and decreasing behaviors in the HMZ, may be due to the contradictory effects of the thermal and electrical conductivities of the TiO2 nano-particles. The transfer of heat and electricity in metals is due to the flow of free electrons. The hot molten metal in the melted zone is full of thermally induced electrons. If the transfer of these hot electrons is fast enough, then the heat available in the melted zone would be less, thereby, resulting in increased HMZ. The thermal conductivity of TiO2 nano-particles is less than that of the base plate. Hence, adding this particular nano-material to the melted zone would reduce the heat transfer and subsequently reduce the hardness. Moreover, TiO2 is a semiconductor with many conduction bands, as shown in Fig. 7. The TiO2 nano-particles present in the melted zone may have been able to transfer the hot electrons fast enough through these bands, which resulted in faster heat dissipation from the melted zone, and subsequently increased the HMZ. The results of the proposed fuzzy model are shown in Table 6 and Fig. 8, wherein the mean relative error (MRE) is defined by

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Table 6. Comparison between the experimental and predicted values of HMZ by using the FL model. Experimentally measured hardness of melted zone, HMZexp 157.94 163.83 149.71 168.28 164.27 149.41 153.04 151.75 161.01 152.11 180.52 155.03 160.26 176.2 156.26 152.51 152.97 166.34 167.31 160.46 155.29 146.63 160.28 153.81 152.35 178.54 184.39 Fuzzy predicted hardness of melted zone, HMZpred 158.2485 164.0577 149.5346 168.4146 164.0577 149.5346 152.4392 152.4392 161.1531 152.4392 180.0331 155.3438 159.7008 175.6762 156.7962 152.4392 152.4392 165.51 166.9623 159.7008 155.3438 146.63 159.7008 153.8915 152.4392 178.5808 184.39

Table 7. Comparison of the predicted and experimental values for HMZ. Input parameters in coded form V I 0 1 0 0 0 S -1 0 0 0 0 C 0 0 0 1 0 F 0 0 0 0 -1 0 0 1 0 0 Predicted values HMZ 154.5 153.2 157.8 156.1 159.3 Experimental values HMZ 154.34 153.15 158.00 156.40 159.65 % Error HMZ 0.10356 0.032637 0.126743 0.192184 0.219711

No 1,12,16,17,24,26 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 14 15 18 19 20 21 22 23 25 27 28 29 30 31 32

%Error 0.195 0.139 0.117 0.080 0.129 0.0834 0.393 0.454 0.089 0.216 0.270 0.202 0.349 0.297 0.343 0.046 0.347 0.499 0.208 0.473 0.035 0.00 0.361 0.053 0.059 0.023 0.00

S. no. 1 2 3 4 5

Average error %

0.135

7. Validation of the fuzzy logic model

Conformity tests were conducted to verify the accuracy of the FL model in actual welding conditions. This process was carried out by assigning different values to different input parameters within the working levels, but different from those already present in the design matrix. Five confirmation runs were performed and their hardness values were measured. The percentage of error indicates the deviation of the predicted values from the measured ones. Table 7 shows that the average error for the model is 0.135%.

8. Conclusions
In this paper, the combined effect of arc voltage (V), welding current (I), welding speed (S), contact tip-to-plate distance (C), and TiO2 nano-particles (F) on HMZ via the FL model in the SAW process was investigated. The results show that when the arc voltage was increased from 24 V to 32 V, HMZ decreases from 160 VHN to 151 VHN. The increase in welding current from 500 A to 700 A caused a decrease in HMZ from 185 VHN to 150 VHN. In addition, when the contact tipto-plate distance was increased from 30 mm to 40 mm, HMZ decreases from 164 VHN to 154 VHN. Moreover, when the welding speed was increased from 300 mm/min to 500 mm/min, HMZ increases from 152 VHN to 179 VHN. Finally, the HMZ increases from 155 VHN to 158 VHN at a thickness of 0.25 mm. Although the hardness remained at 158 VHN for a thickness of 0.5 mm, HMZ decreases from 158 VHN to 152.5 VHN at the thickness of 0.75 mm. Therefore, these results indicated that FL is an accurate and capable technique predicting HMZ in the SAW process.

a The average values of the experiments 1,12, 16,17, 24 and 26 are considered to be used for the modeling process.

Fig. 8. Comparison between the experimental and predicted values of HMZ by using the FL model

Acknowledgements
MRE= (1/N) (HMZexp-HMZpred)/HMZexp (5) The authors would like to thank the Iranian National Gas Company (INGC), Kermanshah, for their financial support. We also Thank Mr. Panahi, Mr. Baghebanbashi, and Mr. Solaymani of the Welding Research Center for their assistance throughout the research work.

where HMZexp and HMZpred are the experimental and predicted values of the HMZ, respectively, and N is the number of welding runs. Based on the obtained results shown in Table 6, the MRE of the fuzzy model is 0.202 %. Therefore, the predictions made by fuzzy model are in good agreement with the experimental data.

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Masood Aghakhani is presently assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran. His field of specialization is welding technology. His interests include modeling, optimization and applications of nano-materials and evolutionary algorithms in welding research.