Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

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Journal of Materials Processing Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jmatprotec

Geometrical and microstructural characteristics of the TIG-CMT

hybrid welding in 6061 aluminum alloy cladding
Ying Liang a,b , Shengsun Hu a,b , Junqi Shen a,b, , Heng Zhang a,b , Peng Wang a,b
a
b

Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Joining Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 3 April 2016
Received in revised form 3 August 2016
Accepted 4 August 2016
Available online 9 August 2016
Keywords:
Cold metal transfer (CMT)
Tungsten inert gas (TIG)
Hybrid welding
Cladding
Aluminum 6061

a b s t r a c t
A tungsten inert gas (TIG)-cold metal transfer (CMT) hybrid welding process is proposed. Compared with
the conventional TIG-metal inert gas/metal active gas (MIG/MAG) hybrid welding method, the characteristic of TIG-CMT welding process is that there is no interaction between the two arcs. The addition
of TIG can improve the wettability of molten metal. The microstructure in hybrid joint is coarser than
that in conventional CMT joint, and the microhardness in weld metal (WM) of hybrid joint is higher than
that of conventional CMT joint. In TIG-CMT hybrid welding process, the TIG current plays an important
role in changing contact angle and the dilution of weld bead. Fine equiaxed grains have been observed in
partially melted zone (PMZ) and coarsened equiaxed grains exist in heat-affected zone (HAZ). The width
of PMZ increases with the increase of heat input. More heat input can also lead to the coarser columnar
dendrite. In all weld joints, the microhardness in HAZ remains at a low level, and the microhardness in
PMZ always has a sharp decrease from WM to HAZ. The outcome of this work shows that the TIG-CMT
hybrid process is suitable for the multi-passes welding of aluminum alloy.
2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Tungsten inert gas (TIG) and metal inert gas (MIG) welding are
the most extensive gas shielded arc-welding processes used in joining aluminum and its alloys due to their preferable exibility and
economy. TIG welding is a high-quality and stable process which
has characteristics of less spatter and better weld bead appearance,
but there are some problems associated with this process like low
welding speed, incomplete penetration and lack of the deposited
metal. On the contrary, MIG welding provides the advantage of a
high-efciency welding method with high deposition rate due to
high heat input. The excessive heat input can also cause quality
problems such as deeper penetration and more serious distortion.
Kanemaru et al. (2014) pointed that during MIG welding process,
the arc is often unstable although the pure argon has been adopted
as shielding gas for the welding process. The instability of the welding process imposes the weld defects such as spatter, oxidation of
the bead surface and weld bead roughness. Therefore, TIG welding
process is preferred over gas metal arc welding process to produce
high quality weldments, as suggested by Temmar et al. (2011).

Corresponding author at: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin

University, Tianjin, 300072, China.
E-mail address: shenjunqi@tju.edu.cn (J. Shen).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2016.08.005
0924-0136/ 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The cold metal transfer (CMT) process is a modied MIG welding process based on short-circuiting transfer process which was
invented by Fronius in 2004. Kah et al. (2013) introduced that
the short-circuiting transfer process named mechanically assisted
droplet deposition which is applied in controlling short circuit
by retracting the wire from the short-circuiting. Schierl (2005)
reported that the droplet detachment mode of CMT process is
without the aid of the electromagnetic force compared to the
conventional MIG process, so the spatter can decrease. The basic
principles of the CMT process have been investigated by Pickin and
Young (2006). There are two main features of the CMT process:
one is at the point of short circuit with low current corresponds to
a low heat input, another one is the short circuit occurrence in a
stable controlled manner. From the above, the special metal transfer method of CMT process can realize low thermal input to the
weldment and the no-spatter welding process. Feng et al. (2009)
previously pointed that the CMT process is especially suitable to
weld thin aluminum alloy sheets due to the low heat input and the
slight deformation. Additional studies by Zhang et al. (2009) and
Cao et al. (2013) have concentrated on the application of the process in dissimilar alloys joining owing to the low heat input which
restrains the formation of brittle intermetallic compounds.
The existing reports about the CMT process employed as a
cladding method for aluminum alloy are limited. Pickin et al.
(2011) studied the features of CMT process and explored it as a

Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

19

Table 1
Chemical composition (wt.%) of 6061 aluminum alloy.
Material

Si

Fe

Cu

Mn

Mg

Cr

Zn

Ti

AA6061

0.40.8

< 0.7

0.150.4

< 0.15

0.81.2

0.040.35

0.25

< 0.15

low-dilution cladding process for applying to ternary alloyed (AlCu-Mg) aluminum plate. Rajeev et al. (2014) suggested that the
CMT process can be an effective and energy-efcient technique for
depositing thick coatings and is useful in weld repair of aluminum
alloy components. Ola and Doern (2014) showed that the CMT process is suitable for low-dilution cladding of nickel-base superalloy,
and has a great potential to be used as a method for repairing
high-temperature equipment. Cong et al. (2015) investigated the
effect of arc mode by CMT process on the porosity characteristic
of additively manufactured Al-6.3%Cu alloy. Kumar et al. (2016)
adopted the pulsed-CMT process to weld 2 mm AA6061 thin steel.
The effect of welding current and welding speed on heat input and
geometrical properties were investigated.
Hybrid heat source is a useful method to solve practical problems, which the conventional heat source cannot be achieved.
Various hybrid arc welding methods have been proposed by previous researchers. Kanemaru et al. (2014) developed a hybrid
TIG-MIG system and proposed that the balance of current between
the TIG and MIG arcs inuences the arc stability. Meng et al. (2014)
pointed out a TIG-metal active gas (MAG) hybrid arc welding process, which could achieve a high speed welding for mild steel. They
also found that the assistant TIG arc is able to effectively stabilize the MAG welding process. Zhang et al. (2014) constructed a
MIG-TIG hybrid welding method in brazing process, which was
successfully applied in joining aluminum to stainless butt joint. A
synchronous TIG arc was used to heat the workpiece in the process.
Especially, the additional heat on steel side brought by the auxiliary
TIG arc could optimize the wetting performance of molten metal.
The lower heat input in the CMT welding process will result
in inferior wettability of the aluminum alloy cladding, and will
inuence the forming of multi-passes welding. The heat input is
a key factor in improving the wettability of the molten metal.
The smaller contact angle can be obtained by increasing CMT current, but the stable short-circuit transition of CMT is unable to
be guaranteed at higher current (more than 100A). This available
parameter range of the CMT process has been examined by Pickin
et al. (2011). As can be seen, the CMT welding process cannot
be blindly expected as an ideal method by only increasing the
current to improve the cladding formation. Accordingly, adding
a stable TIG arc to the workpiece for preheating can increase the
total heat input on the workpiece and improve the wettability of
the molten metal. The introduction of TIG arc can also enhance
the intrinsic high-efciency peculiarity of CMT welding. Based on
this opinion, a TIG-CMT hybrid welding process is proposed in
this investigation. Compared with the conventional TIG-MIG/MAG
hybrid welding method, the characteristic of TIG-CMT hybrid welding is that the two arcs have no interacting in this process. The
objective of this study is to examine the TIG-CMT hybrid process
as an effective cladding technique for repair aluminum alloy components. Microstructure and microhardness properties of the joints
welded by hybrid process were inspected, and compared with those
of the conventional CMT process. The effects of welding parameters on the weld geometrical and microstructural characteristics
during hybrid welding process, which are crucial in manufacturing high quality cladding, were studied and discussed. The change
tendencies of hybrid weld microhardness with different welding
parameters were also analyzed. Ultimately, the multi-passes manufacturing were successfully achieved by using TIG-CMT hybrid
welding.

Al
Bal.

Table 2
Chemical composition (wt.%) of ER4043 ller material.
Material

Al

Si

Mg

Cu

Fe

Mn

Zn

Ti

ER4043

Bal.

5.6

0.05

0.3

0.8

0.05

0.1

0.02

2. Experimental procedure
The base material was 6061 aluminum alloy in initial T4 condition with a thickness of 4 mm. The material was cut into several
pieces with 300 50 4 mm3 dimensions. The ller metal used for
the welding process was ER4043 with a diameter of 1.2 mm. The
nominal chemical composition of the base metal and the ller metal
were shown in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. In TIG-CMT welding system, Advanced CMT 4000 R welding power source and TIG Magic
Wave 4000 welding power source were adopted. The TIG welding
process was used AC mode, and the frequency was 60 Hz.
Pure argon (99%) was employed as shielding gas with ow
rates of 10 L/min and 20 L/min for TIG and CMT, respectively.
The schematic of welding experimental set-up is shown in Fig. 1.
The contact tip to work piece distance (CTWD) of CMT (h1 ) was
maintained at 15 mm, and the distance between electrode tip and
workpiece of TIG (h2 ) was maintained at 4 mm for all over welding
experiments. Both the TIG torch and CMT torch were clamped by a
special xture, which could adjust the distance, axiality and heights
of the torches. Both torches were perpendicular to the weldment.
TIG torch was installed in front of CMT torch. The distance between
the centers of two torches (d) was kept at 30 mm in the whole
welding process, which was benecial to implement the stable
hybridization. In welding, the arc of TIG was rst to be ignited, then
CMT was ignited. All claddings were produced at at position with
clamping devices to prevent distortion. The welding parameters in
this experiment were illustrated in Table 3.
High-speed CCD camera (PHOTRON FASTCAM super 10 KC) with
a frame rate of 1000 frames per second was used to obtain the
images of arc including metal transfer behavior, and verity the feasibility of TIG-CMT welding system. An electrical signal acquisition
system with a sampling rate of 100 kHz was developed to capture current and voltage waveforms. The work piece material was
wiped with ethanol before welding to remove impurities, such as
oil and grease, which were typically present after cutting process.
Transverse section of the weld joint was polished using a standard metallographic procedure. The metallurgical specimens were
etched by modied Keller solution (50 ml H2 O, 1 ml HCl, 1.5 ml HF,
and 2.5 ml HNO3 ). The microstructure was observed by OLYMPUS
Table 3
Welding parameters for TIG-CMT hybrid welding.
Specimens No.

Welding speed
(mm/s)

CMT welding
current (A)

TIG Welding
current (A)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11

5
5
5
5
5
7
9
7
7
5
5

50
50
50
60
70
60
60
70
70
0
0

60
80
100
80
80
80
80
0
100
80
100

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Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of TIG-CMT hybrid welding.

Fig. 2. Schematic showing the geometry of the weld bead.

optical microscope (OM) and Hitachi S-4800 scanning electrical

microscope (SEM) with an energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS)
attached. X-ray diffraction (XRD) was adopted to determine phase
combination. The microhardness was measured using a Vickers
microhardness tester with a loading force of 300 g and dwelling
time of 10 s. Microhardness tests were tested in the centerline of
the cladding from the upper surface of substrate to its bottom with
a step distance of 0.2 mm illustrated in Fig. 2.
3. Results and discussions

status. In Fig. 3b, it can be observed that the two arcs of TIG-CMT
system have no interaction. Consequently, a stable hybridization
of the process is guaranteed. Under this premise, without changing
the special transfer type of CMT process, the TIG arc plays a role in
preheating the weldment, and improving the overall heat input of
welding process. Fig. 4 shows a complete cycle of the CMT shortcircuit transition process. It is shown that a typical metal transfer
process can be divided into 5 parts, including arc ignited, droplet
formed, short-circuited, wire retracted and arc reignited.
The data which was obtained by the electrical signal acquisition
system, was also used to identify the stability of the TIG-CMT welding process. The current and voltage waveforms of TIG and CMT
are shown in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively. Fig. 5 exhibits a typical AC
waveform of TIG welding source. A typical DC CMT transient waveform is shown in Fig. 6. It is observed that a cycle of CMT waveform
can be divided into two parts, arcing phase and short-circuit (S/C)
phase. The arcing phase can be separated into a peak time and a base
time. In the peak time, the arc is ignited and the arcing current is
substantially increased. During this phase, a molten droplet gradually forms on the end of the wire electrode. In the base time, the
arcing current drops and the wire moves towards the weld pool.
When the wire electrode contacts with the molten pool, the S/C
phase begins. During the S/C phase the metal transfer occurs, then
the backward movement of the wire assists the droplet to detach
from the electrode into the molten pool. Finally, the arc is reignited
and the whole cycle starts again.

3.1. Arc behavior and electrical signal waveform

3.2. Effect of the ahead TIG arc
The welding arc images of TIG-CMT welding system are presented in Figs. 3 and 4. As shown in Fig. 3a, although the arc of
TIG is added, the welding process of TIG-CMT system is stabilized,
and CMT process also maintains a stable short-circuit transition

In order to determine that whether the base metal is just preheated or melted by the ahead TIG arc before the CMT droplet
transfer. The effect of TIG arc is separately studied. Because the

Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

21

Fig. 3. High speed images of TIG-CMT welding system: (a) a stable short-circuit transition state of CMT; (b) stable arc state.

Fig. 4. A cycle of the CMT short-circuit transition: (a) 0 ms (b) 15 ms (c) 20 ms (d) 22 ms (e) 27 ms.

Fig. 5. Arc current and voltage waveforms of TIG.

Fig. 6. Arc current and voltage waveforms of CMT.

maximum current of TIG arc used in the TIG-CMT hybrid welding

experiments is 100A, the currents of 80A and 100A are selected for
the single TIG welding experiments.

As shown in Fig. 7a, when the TIG current is 80A, the amount
of molten base metal is very rare. As presented by Fig. 7b, when
the TIG current reaches 100A, the quantity of molten metal is still

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Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

Fig. 7. Transverse sections of TIG arc welds: (a) at 80A current; (b) at 100A current.

Fig. 8. Weld appearance at 70 A CMT welding current (v = 7 mm/s): (a) (b) conventional CMT weld; (c) (d) TIG-CMT hybrid weld with TIG welding current of 100 A.

small. Fig. 7 shows that the TIG arc melts just a shallow layer of the
base metal. Almost no penetration of the welding process is formed.
Therefore, the tiny molten metal is ignored in the experiments. The
effect of TIG arc is considered as a preheating source.
3.3. Comparison of CMT and TIG-CMT process
Fig. 8a and c show the weld surface of conventional CMT and
TIG-CMT hybrid process, respectively. It is can be seen from Fig. 8a
that the weld surface of conventional CMT is not uniform with
some obvious ripples distributing in the front and middle of the
weld bead. This is mainly because the heat input of the conventional CMT is low and the molten metal is unable to fully spread
out on the substrate. In contrast, the weld surface of TIG-CMT process is tight, consistent and uniform without defect. Compared to
conventional CMT, the weld width of TIG-CMT joint is wider and
the surface is smoother. Fig. 8b and d show the pictures of the cross
section of the weld beads. In contrast with conventional CMT, the
contact angle of cladding decreases by the introduction of TIG arc in
hybrid welding. The contact angle of conventional CMT cladding is
already reached 147 while that of TIG-CMT is only about 63 . When
the TIG arc is added as a preheating source, a higher temperature
eld can be established on the alloy to promote the wettability of
the liquid metal. This principle was reported by Zhang et al. (2014).
Hence, in the condition of same deposited rate, the effect of TIG arc
preheating can improve the wettability of molten metal, and then
a desired contact angle of cladding can be obtained. Pickin et al.
(2011) pointed that the contact angle of more than 90 not only
resulted in non-uniform bead shape deposition, but also potential voids could occur between each successive cladding weld pass.
Because the obtained contact angle of hybrid joint is much less
than 90 . Therefore, under the premise of access to good wettability (contact angle less than 90 ), the welding speed can be further
improved and the welding efciency can also be increased.
Microstructural distributions of weld metal (WM) of conventional CMT and TIG-CMT process are displayed in Fig. 9. According
to the comparison, the microstructures of WM in both processes

are similar, mainly containing the dendrites and the columnar dendrites. The reason for this phenomenon includes the fast heating
and the fast cooling rate of WM during the welding process. Comparison also shows that the only distinction between two kinds
of structures is the dendrite arm spacing. The spacing is wider in
hybrid joint and narrower in conventional CMT joint, that is, the
microstructure in hybrid joint is coarser than that in conventional
CMT joint, which is due to the increase of total heat input by the
extra TIG arc.
As presented by Fig. 10b, the weld bead of hybrid can be divided
into 4 parts, weld metal (WM), heat-affected zone (HAZ), partially
melted zone (PMZ) and base metal (BM). By comparison, the HAZ of
both joints are composed of equiaxed grains, and the grains of HAZ
grow up not only in conventional CMT process but also in hybrid
process. The difference is that the HAZ grains of hybrid joint become
more coarsening than that of conventional CMT joint. Especially,
the hybrid joint includes PMZ, but this area is not obvious in conventional CMT joint (Fig. 10a). This area will be discussed in detail
in the following sections. The HAZ width of TIG-CMT joint is wider
compared with that of conventional CMT joint. The HAZ width of
hybrid joint is approximately 2 mm, while that of conventional CMT
joint is only about 1 mm.
From Fig. 11, the results show that different microhardness distributions exhibit in conventional CMT and TIG-CMT joints. The
microhardness in WM of conventional CMT joint is lower than that
in BM. Due to the narrower HAZ of conventional CMT joint, the
microhardness of HAZ has a sharp increase from 57 HV to 72 HV.
This is because the microhardness of ller wire is lower than the
value of BM and the molten base metal mixing into WM is scant.
Inversely, the microhardness of the hybrid joint in WM increases
gradually, from 64 HV to 70 HV. Owing to the heat input of hybrid
process increasing, more molten substrate mixes into the WM,
which enhances the microhardness of WM. The microhardness in
HAZ is low about 50 HV, and the width of HAZ is widened. This
is because the extra heat input leads to the grains in HAZ becoming coarser. High temperature can also make the preexisting Mg2 Si
phase precipitate and grow up in HAZ. That makes the HAZ soft-

Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

23

Fig. 9. Microstructure of weld metal: (a) (b) conventional CMT; (c) (d) TIG-CMT.

Fig. 10. Microstructures of joints: (a) conventional CMT; (b) TIG-CMT.

ening, i.e, the microhardness values reduce to a low level. This

phenomena is called overaging process. In particular, the microhardness values have a decreasing tendency in PMZ, the value
reduces from 75 HV to 52 HV. Because PMZ is a transition area
between the WM and HAZ in hybrid joint, the values in this zone
change violently.

3.4. Weld bead geometry

The characteristics of weld bead macrostructures include the
weld width, weld depth, reinforcement height, the radio of dilution
D and the contact angle (Fig. 2). The weld metal dilution radio can

be calculated using the Eq. (1), this being derived from the work of
Ola and Doern (2014).
D=

Ad
100%
Ah + Ad

(1)

where Ah and Ad are the areas of weld reinforcement and weld penetration, respectively. Dilution indicates how much molten base
metal mixing with the weld metal. Deep penetration and high dilution are undesirable during cladding because it will inuence the
properties of the cladding. Obtaining the low dilution needs as few
heat inputs as possible, but it will result in large contact angle and
undesirable multi-passes forming in future.
All the transverse proles and the correlations between the
geometry and welding parameters are illustrated in Figs. 12 and 13,
respectively. Fig. 13a shows how the geometry of the welds changes

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Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

Fig. 11. Microhardness distributions of conventional CMT and TIG-CMT joints.

with TIG current. The welds are wider and deeper when the TIG current increases, which can be related to the amount of heat input.
Oppositely, the reinforcement height reduces. Because of the constant of CMT current, which makes the deposition efciency keep
invariable when the weld width and depth increase, the reinforcement height reduces inevitability. Fig. 13b shows that the contact
angle decreases by the increase of TIG current, from nearly 90 to
about 50 . In contrast, the dilution rises with the increase of TIG current. On account of more heat input provided for the molten pool,
surface tension decreases with the increase of the liquid metal temperature (Sahoo et al., 1988), which can cause stronger wettability
of the droplet and more molten substrate.

When the TIG current is constant, the weld width and depth
increase with increasing CMT current. The reinforcement height
increases, as shown in Fig. 13c, because increasing CMT current
provides more deposited metal and heat input per unit for substrate. Fig. 13d shows that the contact angle reduces, while the
dilution increases. The small contact angle and high dilution of weld
bead are obtained due to the high temperature eld of molten pool,
which also can cause more molten base metal to mix into the WM.
Although the heat input of CMT increases, the deposited metal also
increases. A part of the heat input is consumed in melting more ller
metal, so the spreadability of the droplet on substrate increases
inapparently.
Fig. 13e presents the geometry of the weld beads at different
welding speed. The weld width, depth and reinforcement height
drop when the welding speed increases, owing to less heat input
and deposited metal per unit for molten pool. The contact angle
increases and the dilution decreases with increase of the welding
speed as shown in Fig. 13f. Due to the lower temperature of molten
pool, the spreadability of the droplet on substrate is poor and the
molten base metal is less, which results in larger contact angle and
lower dilution of weld bead.
It could be concluded that the TIG current and the welding speed
inuence the contact angle and the dilution of weld bead. The CMT
current plays an important role in increasing weld depth of weld
bead.
3.5. Microstructure
A typical microstructure of hybrid weld bead is displayed in
detail in Fig. 14. As it shows, the microstructure of BM reveals elongated grains along rolling direction (Fig. 14e). The microstructure
of WM is composed of dendrites (Fig. 14b). The part of WM near the
PMZ is consisted of columnar dendrites (Fig. 14d). Due to the high

Fig. 12. Transverse sections of cladding with specimen number.

Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

25

Fig. 13. Weld bead geometry of different welding parameters: (a) (b) variation of TIG current; (c) (d) variation of CMT current; (e) (f) variation of welding speed.

temperature gradient, columnar dendrites grow perpendicularly

from PMZ to the weld center. The research of Wang et al. (2004)
has shown that the oriented grain structure may be attributed to
directional cooling, and the direction of the grain growth must be
along the largest temperature gradient during solidication. The
grain renement appears in PMZ (Fig. 14d). Since cooling rate is
fast, ner grains structure are obtained in this area than in HAZ.
The PMZ corresponds to the area where high temperature causes
recrystallization. Coarsened equiaxed grains have been observed in
HAZ (Fig. 14c), due to the enough high temperature duration time
which can lead to the growth of the grains.
As shown in Fig. 15, with the increase of TIG current, the grain
size of WM grows up, and the width of PMZ area becomes wider.

Because the addition of TIG current increases the heat input which
results in longer high temperature period and slower cooling rate,
the grains suffer considerable coarsening and the area of recrystallization increases. The grain sizes of WM and PMZ increase
with CMT current increases. Depending on the increase of heat
input, much more weld metal is melted, so the columnar dendrites
near the PMZ become coarser which is reected in the increase
of dendrite arm spacing. Hence, the columnar dendrites are no
longer signicant. It is also can be found that the width of PMZ
area increases. The grain sizes of WM and PMZ decrease with the
increase of welding speed. Owing to less heat input per unit for
molten pool which results in lower temperature gradient and brief
period of intense cooling, dendrites do not have enough time to

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Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

Fig. 14. A typical microstructure of TIG-CMT hybrid weld bead: (a) weld bead; (b) WM; (c) HAZ; (d) PMZ; (e) BM.

Fig. 15. Microstructures of weld beads.

grow up, so the columnar dendrites near the PMZ become ner
and more obvious. The width of PMZ decreases with the increase
of welding speed.
In summary, the width of the PMZ can be increased by increasing the heat input. The similar nding has been explained by Kou
(2003). The heat input can also inuence the dendrite arm spacing
of columnar dendrites. The more heat input is, the coarser columnar dendrite is. Due to using the Al-Si ller metal, the intermetallic
compound in weld metal can be scarcely found. So the increase of
heat input only can result in the grains growth.
Based on Fig. 16a, the XRD diffraction peak of BM only exists Al without other phase, due to the low content of other elements
except Al. Compared with BM, the diffraction peak of WM is differ-

ent. This is because the component of ller metal has a difference

with the BM. The ller metal has more Si and Fe elements. From
Fig. 16b, it can be seen that the diffraction peaks of WM consists of
Al-Si and Al-Fe-Si.
As shown in Fig. 17, a certain number of micro-pores with the
diameter about 20 m distribute in the grain boundary in dendritic
structure of WM. Kou (2003) explained that those pores are called
interdendritic pores. There are two main formation mechanisms.
One is due to the solidication shrinkage of liquid metal, and the
other is due to gas formation. It is difcult to tell that those pores are
caused by which mechanism. Cong et al. (2015) also pointed that
the cellular dendrite, dendritic solidication interface and some
inclusions can be used as efcient nucleation particles for gas pores.

Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

27

Fig. 16. XRD patterns of the base metal and weld metal: (a) BM; (b) WM.

Fig. 17. SEM of weld metal.

The eutectic structures are presented in the interdendritic

spaces of -Al matrix of WM, as indicated in Fig. 18a. EDS result
of the light area is given by Fig. 18b. It is obvious that light regions
consist of signicant amount of Al and Si. According to the work by
Nikseresht et al. (2010), as ER4043 ller metal consist of around 5%
Si element, the Al-Si eutectic structure is expected to be enriched
of this element.
Fig. 19 shows the variation of the composition along the depth
from substrate to the weld bead. It is seen that the content of Mg
decreases from the substrate to the weld bead. Compared to Mg,
there is an abrupt change of Si at the interface, which is due to the
low dilution of the weld bead. The content of Al has no obvious
change owing to the fact that both the substrate and weld bead are
rich in aluminum.
3.6. Microhardness
Fig. 20a exhibits that when the TIG current increases, the
microhardness values of WM rise, from 60 HV to 75 HV, and the
microhardness tendency of each WM increases. This is attributed
to the increase of the heat input, which promotes more molten
base metal to gradually mix into the WM, particularly more complete mixing existing in PMZ. More heat input can lead to better

uidity of the molten metal. The microhardness in PMZ has a cliff

in every sample. With the increase of TIG current, the decreasing
degree become more intense. Fig. 20b shows the microhardness
changed with the increase of CMT current. It can be observed that
the microhardness values of WM rise (from 65 HV to 85 HV), and the
values in WM become more uniform. This is because the increase
of heat input improves the mixing properties of the molten metal.
The width of PMZ also grows and an abrupt change appears in this
area. Fig. 20c shows that there is a slight difference in microhardness values of WM with increasing welding speed. The width of
PMZ indicates that the faster welding speed is, the narrower transition region will be, due to the decreasing heat input per unit. The
microhardness in PMZ reduces to the same degree of every sample.
It should be noted that the microhardness of HAZ of all samples remains at a low level. The values of WM are higher than
those in HAZ. The microhardness values of PMZ always reduce.
As mentioned above, PMZ is a transition area between the WM
and HAZ. A part of gains in PMZ are ner than those in HAZ and
the other part of grains are similar to the grains of HAZ. According
to Hall-Petch equation, the ner the grain size is, the higher the
microhardness is. So the values of microhardness in PMZ decrease
rapidly from a higher value to a lower value. Another reason is that
the temperature in a part of PMZ (ner grains) is high enough to

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Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

Fig. 18. Microstructure and EDS analysis of weld metal.

Fig. 19. Line scanning analysis along with the depth of weld bead.

achieve the solution temperature, which causes the precipitates

strengthening phase (Mg2 Si) dissolving into the solid solution and
becoming a supersaturated solid solution. Then the re-precipitation
does not occur due to the insufcient cooling time. The precipitates
strengthening also partially improve the hardness of PMZ.

3.7. The formation of the multi-passes manufactured

The multi-passes welding is produced with conventional CMT
and TIG-CMT process, respectively. As shown in Fig. 21, the conguration is inuenced by adding TIG arc. Contact angle is a vital

Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

29

Fig. 20. Microhardness distributions along the depth of weld bead: (a) variation of TIG current; (b) variation of CMT current; (c) variation of welding speed.

factor for adding successive multi-passes. Ola and Doern (2014)

highlighted that CMT cladding at lower heat input produced weld
beads with higher contact angle with the substrate, and suggested
that a contact angle lower than 65 would be a successive passes
by CMT cladding of the alloy. From Fig. 8, when current of CMT
is 70 A and welding speed is 7 mm/s, the contact angle of conventional CMT weld bead is more than 90 , and the multi-passes of
conventional CMT is undesirable (Fig. 21a). When the TIG arc is
introduced into the process, the contact angle of TIG-CMT weld
bead is less than 65 , and the multi-passes is successfully produced

(Fig. 21b). Both of the weld metals include some gas pores. This is
attributed to the lack of enough time to make the gas overow out
of the molten metal. The result illustrates that the TIG-CMT hybrid
process is more appropriate for the addition of successive passes.
4. Conclusions
This work investigates the geometrical and microstructure
characteristics of TIG-CMT cladding. The primary conclusions are
summarized as follows:

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Y. Liang et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 239 (2017) 1830

Fig. 21. The prole and transverse sections of multi-passes manufactured: (a) conventional CMT; (b) TIG-CMT.

1) The TIG arc plays a role in preheating base metal and improves
the wettability of the molten metal. The TIG current inuences
the contact angle and the dilution of weld bead.
2) Fine equiaxed grains exist in PMZ and coarsened equiaxed grains
form in HAZ. The width of PMZ increases with the increase of
heat input.
3) The value of microhardness in PMZ has a decrease because the
grains of PMZ are ner than those of HAZ and solution strengthening occurs in a part of this area.
4) The proposed TIG-CMT hybrid welding process is demonstrated
to be suitable for multi-passes welding of aluminum alloy.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the research funding by
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51575381)
and Tianjin Research Program of Application Foundation and
Advanced Technology (Grant No. 15JCZDJC38600).
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