A HYBRID CONTROLLER DESIGN FOR KEEPING CONSTANT VOLTAGE AND CURRENT OF A GAS METAL ARC WELDING SYSTEM

Pandu Sandi Pratama, Tan-Tung Phan*, Hak Kyeong Kim, and Sang Bong Kim Department of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, Pukyong National University, Busan 608-739, Korea *Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Hochiminh City University of Technology, Hochiminh, Vietnam

ABSTRACT This paper aims to design a hybrid controller for keeping constant voltage and current of a Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW). The proposed controller makes output welding current and voltage of digital GMAW system track their setting values easily and quickly. Modellings of GMAW power supply and wire feeding unit are presented. Based on the modelings, two controllers are designed. First, P controller is proposed in order to keep the output welding voltage of GMAW power supply to the setting value based on modeling of GMAW power supply (PS-GMAW). Second, a fuzzy-sliding mode controller (FSMC) is proposed to change the electrode feed rate in order to achieve the output welding current to the setting value based on dynamics modeling of wire feeding unit (WFU). The feedback control gain from the fuzzy inference rule base can be obtained by fuzzifying the sliding surface. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller, the proposed controller is compared with the conventional PID controller using simulation. The output current of GMAW system using Fuzzy-Sliding Mode Control (FSMC) is better than using conventional PID with regard to not only rising time but also settling time and steady state error.

1. INTRODUCTION Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) is the most popular welding machine used in various industries. GMAW is a welding process which joins metals by heating the metals to their melting point with an electric arc. The arc is shielded from contaminants in the atmosphere by a shielding gas. In the welding process, the output welding current and voltage are the decisive factors on the quality of welding product. In order to get the best quality of welding results, the output welding current and voltage must be constantly controlled during the welding process. Several controllers have been applied to the welding systems. PID is very simple, but it is not suitable for nonlinear systems [1]. In sliding mode control, chattering phenomenon in digital application will excite high frequency unmodelled dynamics which are undesired in the control system [2]. To solve the problem, a new control method is needed.

This paper proposes a controller for keeping constant voltage and constant current of GMAW. The proposed digital GMAW system makes output welding current and voltage track their setting values easily and quickly. Based on modeling of GMAW power supply (PS-GMAW), P controller is proposed to keep the output welding voltage of GMAW power supply to the setting value. Based on dynamics modeling of wire feeding unit (WFU), fuzzy-sliding mode controller (FSMC) is proposed to change the electrode feed rate in order to achieve the output welding current to the setting value. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller, the proposed controller is compared with the conventional PID controller using simulation results. The output current of GMAW system using Fuzzy-Sliding Mode Control (FSMC) is better than using conventional PID with regard to not only rising time but also settling time and steady state error.

2. DYNAMIC SYSTEM MODELING The basic of GMAW equipment is shown in Fig. 1. The GMAW system uses CO2 as shielding gas. The wire feed speed of Wire Feeding Unit (WFU) has range from about 1.9 to 30m/min. It consists of 24V DC motor, gearbox, guide tube clamp and feed rolls. For welding electrode, 1.2 mm aluminum electrode is used.

The GMAW power supply is designed with two feedback, voltage and current. Based on the setting values and the feedback values, the error of voltage and current are determined. Using error of voltage, the proportional controller is designed and applied to control the duty of PWM of an IGBTs gate to track the voltage setting value during welding process. Using error of current, the Fuzzy-Sliding Mode Controller (FSMC) is designed and applied to control the speed of wire feeding motor to track the current setting value during the welding process. The change of electrode feed rate makes the output welding current change. 2.1. GMAW power supply The equivalent circuit of the GMAW system can be expressed as Fig. 3. , , , , and represent the average output voltage of GMAW power supply, resistance of PS, parasitic resistance in the circuit, resistance between contact tip and wire, welding current and inductance of the GMAW power supply, respectively. The voltage for welding circuit can be expressed as follows [5] : = (

Fig. 1 Basic GMAW equipment. (1) Shielding gas; (2) DC motor and gear box; (3) welding electrode roll; (4) WFU; (5) GMAW power supply; (6) control box; (7) welding gun; (8) workpiece; (9) control cable. The schematic circuit of GMAW power supply is shown in Fig. 2. Power supply with 220V AC and 60 Hz is rectified using 1 phase bridge diode, and then using DC link capacitor smooths the rectified DC voltage. Two pairs of IGBT with full bridge configuration inverts the smoothed DC voltage into 20 kHz AC voltage. The output voltage can be controlled by changing the duty cycle of PWM for IGBTs gate trigger. High frequency step down transformer with ferrite core reduces the output voltage to 16 VAC - 36 VAC, and then this output voltage is rectified by one pair of high frequency diode.
+ AC 22060Hz High frequency transformer
Inductor

+ ( + + ) + )

+ (1)

where is given as a constant value of 14.5 V, and is a switch parameter and defined as follows : = { 1 0 (2)

Equation (1~2) show that the value of welding voltage is dependent on GMAW power supply voltage . For this system, welding current is considered as disturbance.
Welding electrode

DC 20kHz

WFU

CT
Wire feed speed control

Rn
+ Torch 50V DC
Feedback loop voltage Feedback current

Contact tip
RP

Temperature sensor IGBT1 IGBT2

- Earth

L
Ua Ra

Isolated PWM for IGBT1 and IGBT2 Control circuit Control duty of PWM

DSP TMS320F2812 Generate and control PWM

Setting Value

Arc

Work pice

Fig. 2 Schematic circuit of GMAW.

Fig. 3 Circuit layout of the GMAW system

2.2.

Dynamic model of wire feeding unit (WFU).

3. CONTROL METHOD. 3.1. Voltage controller design for GMAW power supply. When the arc is ON, the average voltage output of GMAW power supply in Eq. (1) can be rewritten as follows: =(
)

From [5], the relationship between melting rate and welding current is describe by : = (3)

where and are the coefficient ratios of the melting-rate to the welding current and welding voltage, respectively. The electrode feed-rate must be equal to the electrode melting-rate to maintain a stable arc length [5]. = = (4) (5)

+(

+ (10)

The average output voltage of GMAW power supply can be expressed as follows: = 2

(11)

Therefore, the welding current can be expressed as follows: =

()

where D is duty of PMW that ranges from 0 to 48%, is output voltage of transformer. In this GMAW system, output voltage of transformer is 86V. Using Eqs. (10) and (11), the duty D can be expressed as:
1 ( = 172 [

(6)

) )

(12)

Where = In this system, a DC servomotor is utilized to control the DC motor of WFU which controls the electrode feed-rate to keep the welding arc. The dynamic relationship between the electrode feed-rate and the voltage of a DC servomotor can be expressed as follows:
()

The relationship between the controller and D can be written as:

16100 3

(13)

H= 129/400. From Eqs. (10~13), the average voltage of GMAW can be written as follows:

() ()

0 2 + 1 + 0

(7)

400 [( 129

+(

+ (14)

If is considered as disturbance of the system, the transfer function () of the WFU between () and can be expressed as follows: () = () = where
() () () ()

= =

)]

(15)

= ( + + ) is considered as disturbance. The error voltage is dened as: () = ( =

= [
1

() +

] ]

(8) (9)

(16)

= [2 +

0 1 + 0

The proposed controller can be stated as:

() (1)

+ (1)

(17)

w
(17) (13) (15)

Fig. 4. Block diagram of open loop of WFU

Fig. 5 Proportional controller for PS-GMAW

3.2. Current controller design for WFU. In order to control the welding current, Fuzzy-Sliding Mode Control (FSMC) will be applied in WFU system [1]. Recalling Eqs. (6) and (7), the state-equation with zero initial values of system can be expressed as follows : 1 = 2 = 1 = 2 2 = 1 2 0 1 + 0 1 = [1 + ] { = (18)

= 0 (23) The fuzzy control rules are as follows: NB : Negative Big NM : Negative Medium NS : Negative Small ZE/Z: Zero PS : Positive Small PM : Positive Medium PB : Positive Big and their universe of discourse are all assigned to be {-6, 6}. The membership functions for these fuzzy sets corresponding to , or are defined in Fig. 6.
s N Z 1 P N Z s 1 P

2 where = [ ] is the state vector, = is the scalar output, and = is the scalar controller for WFU, and = 1 . The current error is dened as follows :

S -3 0 3 u NB NM NS ZE 1 PS PM PB -3 0 3

u -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

Fig. 6 Membership functions of , and In the following, we show that the rule base of the FSMC can be constructed base of Lyapunovs condition in Eq. (23). = [ ( 1 ) + 0 ] +
0

(19)

where is the constant setting current value. From Eq. (18), derivative of the error in Eq. (19) can be expressed as, = 1 =

(20)

( ) (24)

In order to obtain the controller of sliding mode, the sliding surface is dened as [2] : = () + () (21)

where is a positive constant value. The error in the Eq. (21) converges to zero along the trajectory of S=0. From Eq. (21), if S=0, is negative when is positive, and vice versa. That is, 0. Thus, the equilibrium point of converges to zero as t. Derivative of sliding surface can be calculated as follows : = [ ( 1 ) + 0 ] +
0

From Eq. (24), it is seen that if < 0, then decreasing will result in decreasing of SS and that if > 0, and vice versa. Hence, the control variable can designed in an attempt to satisfy the hitting condition < 0. The fuzzy control rule base is shown in Table 1. Then apply the Mamdani's mini- operation fuzzy implication and adopt the center of area as defuzzification method to construct the rule set shown as surface in Fig. 7. Table 1 Rule Base of FSMC

P Z N

P PB PS NS Z PM ZE NM N PS NS NB

( ) (22)

where = 0 1 is bounded value. The Fuzzy-sliding mode controller (FSMC) can be drawn from the Lyapunovs condition,

 = 1 34, the diameter of feed roll = 40 x 10-3 m. the ratio between the electrode feed-rate and the angular velocity of DC motor is given as: = = 60 2

Fig. 8 GMAW system simulation using MATLAB SIMULINK Fig. 7 Rule surface of SMFC 4. SIMULATION RESULT. 4.1. Identification of parameters for the transfer function The transfer function in Eq. (7) can be written as follows :
(25) (26) = ( + )( + + ) (27) 2 ( + )+( + ) 0 (28) = 2 + + 1 0

= 0.0353 The parameters of transfer function be calculate as follows :

0 = 1 = 0 =
+ +

(29)
,

can

= 141542 = 7077

(30) (31) (32)

= 7979476

The nominal mathematical model of the transfer function () is as follows :

()

() ()

= s2 +7077s+7979476

1415442

(33)

Table 2 Numerical values of DC motor WFU Parameters values Units -3 ke [V sec/ rad ] 57.3x10 kT [N m / A] 48x10-2 Ram [] 1.1 -3 L am [H ] 0.9x10
Jm

The depends on a diameter of welding electrode. Based on experimental results, the gain can be approximated ranging from 0.041~0.046 for 1.2 mm aluminum electrode [5]. In this paper, = 0.043 is chosen. 4.2. Simulation Result Numerical value and initial value used in simulation and experiment are shown in Tables 3 and 4.

= =

0.157x10-4 6.28x10-3 0.82x10-3

[kgm 2 ]

[s ] [s ]

In this system the rate of gear box

Table 3 Numerical value and initial value Parameters Values Unit [A] Setting current 110 [V ] Setting voltage 22 [mm] Diameter Electrode 1.2 Ra [] 0.019 Rp [] 0.096 Rn [] 0.017 Table 4 Numerical values and initial Gains value Gains Value Ki 1/5 0.043 Kw 0.14 1/10 KP 0.51 200 350 To verify the effectiveness of proposed controller, the controller is compared with PID controller. Parameters of PID controller are derived using ziegler-nichols method. From this method, PID parameters, = 0.3, = 0.25 and = 0.165, are chosen for simulation. Fig. 9 shows that the performance of rising time, settling time and steady state error of the output current of GMAW is better using the proposed fuzzy-sliding mode controller than using conventional PID controller.

Fig. 11 Output voltage. Fig. 11 shows that the simulation result of output welding current and voltage are 110A and 22V, respectively. Fig. 11 shows that the welding supply voltage changes depend on the welding current to maintain the welding voltage .

5. CONCLUSION. Based on the dynamics models of GMAW, the hybrid controller was proposed by combining proportional controller and fuzzy sliding mode controller. The proposed hybrid controller tracks its setting value and keeps constant voltage and current of a Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW). Simulation result shows that the performance of rising time, settling time and steady state error of the output current of GMAW is better using proposed controller than using conventional PID controller.

REFERENCES
1. F. Ding, J.K. Huang, S. Yu, L. Lihui, Fuzzy

Fig. 9 Output current

.
2.

Figs. 9 show that the FSMC makes the system reach the steady state condition after 0.8 seconds. PID controller needs 4.5 seconds to reach steady state condition. The sliding surface of FSCM in Fig. 10 shows that reachability condition to the sliding surface <0 is proved.

3.

4.

5.

Fig. 10 Sliding surface

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