Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2016) 86:557–564
DOI 10.1007/s00170-015-8159-y
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A study on the arc characteristics of underwater wet
welding process
Bo Chen 1 & Caiwang Tan 1 & Jicai Feng 1
Received: 14 September 2015 / Accepted: 24 November 2015 / Published online: 16 December 2015
# Springer-Verlag London 2015
Abstract To control the underwater wet welding quality, an
arc sensor was used to obtain electrical information of under-
water wet welding, and the information was analyzed to find
the characteristics that could reflect the arc stability. Short-
circuit time and frequency distributions were compared be-
tween underwater wet weld and CO2 weld; sensitivity analysis
method was used to find the factors that influenced the
welding quality. Experiment results showed that the arc sta-
bility of underwater wet weld was worse than CO2 weld, and
arc voltage and weld speed played important roles in under-
water wet weld quality. Sensitivity model for underwater wet
weld arc stability was constructed; factors that had important
influences on underwater wet welding quality were investigat-
ed, and this laid the foundation for controlling the underwater
wet welding process quality.
Keywords Underwater wet welding . Arc characteristics .
Weld automation . Weld sensor
1 Introduction
With the fast development of the exploitation of marine re-
sources, underwater welding technology is becoming more
and more important [1, 2]. Underwater welding technology
includes the dry chamber welding, portable dry spot welding,
and wet welding [3]; among them, underwater wet welding
* Bo Chen
chenber21@gmail.com
1
Key laboratory of special welding technology of Shandong Province,
Harbin Institute of Technology at Weihai, No 2 West Wenhua Road,
Weihai 264209, People’s Republic of China
has the advantage of easy operation, flexible application, and
low cost; it is gaining more and more attention nowadays [4].
Underwater wet welding technology can be divided into un-
derwater shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) and flux-cored
arc welding (FCAW). SMAW is usually done by divers; the
welding rod needs to be changed frequently during the
welding process because of the limit of the welding rod, so
it is difficult to realize automated welding. FCAW uses flux-
cored wire to do the welding work, and the available welding
time is much longer; it is a promising underwater wet welding
method to be used in automated welding. Underwater wet
welding has very rigorous work environment; the work piece
is directly put in the water, and the arc is only protected by the
bubbles and steam generated by the burn of welding materials
and work piece, accompanied by the influence of water-
cooling and pressure, the underwater wet welding process
has very poor weld bead forming [5]. The welding quality of
underwater welding is much worse than the welding done
onshore.
To control the underwater weld quality and understand
the forming process of underwater wet welding bead, dif-
ferent information that can reflect welding quality should be
obtained during the welding process. Sensors that have been
currently used in underwater wet welding include acoustic
sensor [6–8], visual sensor [9–12], and arc sensor. Because
stable welding arc is the foundation for obtaining fine
welding quality, it will be helpful to study the arc informa-
tion to control the weld quality. Some researchers have stud-
ied the arc characteristics in hyperbaric underwater welding
[13, 14], and some researchers have studied the arc charac-
teristics of SMAW in underwater welding [15, 16].
However, few researches about arc characteristics have
been done on underwater wet welding using FCAW; most
researches about underwater FCAW were focused on the
weld seam-tracking technologies to date [9, 17–19].
558
Fig. 1 Experimental system
Weld power
To understand the arc characteristics of underwater wet
welding process by FCAW, an arc sensor was used to study
the arc voltage and current information in underwater wet
welding. Algorithms were developed to obtain the statistical
characteristics of the welding voltage and current, and arc
stability was analyzed by using the reciprocal of the variable
coefficients, and the relationship between the welding param-
eters and arc stability was analyzed.
The main objective of this research was to study the influ-
ence factors that influence the underwater wet weld bead and
find the characteristics that could reflect the arc stability. The
rest of the paper was organized as follows: section 2 briefly
introduced the experimental system; section 3 compared the
electrical signal characteristics between CO2 welding and un-
derwater wet welding by analyzing the short-circuit time; sec-
tion 4 used the sensitivity method to analyze the underwater
wet welding process, and the sensitivity model was construct-
ed to analyze the influence on underwater arc welding arc
stability; and a conclusion was made in Section 5.
2 Experiment setup
Experiment of underwater wet welding was conducted in
a water tank, in which the welding method was processed.
The schematic diagram of the experiment system was
shown in Fig. 1; the system mainly comprised a welding
Table 1 Chemical composition and mechanical properties of
supercored 71
w(C)/% w(Mn)/% w(Si)/% σ0.2(MPa) σb(MPa)
0.03 1.45 0.55 540 590
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2016) 86:557–564
IPC
Protect
circuit Control
circuit
Wire feeder
Water tank
3D motion
plat form
Weld torch
Work piece
Current
Hall sensor
power source, a wire feeder, a three-dimensional motion
platform, an industrial personal computer (IPC) in which
there were one data acquisition card and one motion con-
trol card, and a current hall sensor and a protect circuit.
The motion control card was used to control the three-
dimensional motion platform for controlling the welding
speed; the current hall sensor and the protect circuit were
used to obtain the weld current and voltage information,
and the information was obtained by the acquisition card
in the IPC; the sampling rates of the weld voltage and
current were 20 KHz.
Before welding, water was poured into the water tank until
the water surface was about 0.2 m higher than the work piece
surface. Hyundai supercored 71 self-shielded flux-cored wire
of 1.2-mm diameter was used to deposit bead-on-plate welds
on Q235 steel plate with a dimension of 300×50×6 mm. The
chemical composition and mechanical properties of the filler
materials were shown in Table 1.
Figure 2 showed one weld bead of underwater wet weld by
using FCAW, and the welding voltage was 24 V; the welding
current was 240 A. For the purpose of comparison, CO2 weld
with the same welding parameters was conducted with the
CO2 flow rate 15 l/min, and the experiment result was shown
in Fig. 3.
δ(%)
26
Fig. 2 Weld bead of underwater wet weld
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2016) 86:557–564
Fig. 3 Weld bead of CO2 welding in open air
3 Analysis of underwater weld electrical signals
From Figs. 2 and 3, it could be seen that the underwater wet
welding bead forming was much worse than the weld bead of
CO2 welding. This was caused by the rigorous underwater
environment, because in the underwater environment, the
cooling rate was much higher, and the arc was not as stable
as the arc in the atmospheric environment. Figure 4 shows the
current and voltage waveform of the underwater welding, and
Fig. 5 shows the current and voltage waveform of the CO2
welding; from the figures, it could be seen that changes of the
waveforms of underwater welding was very dramatic; the var-
iation of the underwater weld waveform was much bigger
than the CO2 welding.
3.1 Analysis of short-circuit time and arcing time
From Figs. 4 and 5, it could be seen that the underwater
welding arc was not as stable as the CO2 welding; there were
lots of interruption arc and arc striking. These are one of the
reasons for its inaesthetic forming. Short-circuit time and arc
burning time are two parameters that could reflect the arc
burning process, so the short-circuit time and arc burning time
Fig. 4 Current and voltage waveform of underwater wet welding
559
were first calculated. To obtain the short-circuit time and arc
burning time, the following algorithm was designed.
First, a voltage threshold UT and a current threshold IT
were set according to lots of experiments, and a short-
circuit time threshold TN and a sampling threshold CT
were set to distinguish transient short-circuit process and
normal short-circuit process. The obtained voltage and
current data were first transformed to the real value.
Then, they were compared with the set thresholds. First,
the voltage was compared; if the ith sample data met the
following requirements: Ui+1 < UT and Ui−1 > UT, then it
was the start data of a short-circuit; and if the ith sampling
data met the following requirements: Ui+1 >UT and Ui−1 <
UT, then it was the end of the short-circuit time, as shown
in Fig. 6. All the start and end data of the short circuit
could be obtained by the above method, and the start
position of the start data were stored as N2 and the end
data were stored as N3, and it should be assured that the
current value of N3 should be bigger than IT to ensure the
reliability of the judgment and avoid the influence of sig-
nal fluctuations. The data between N2 and N3 were the
data during the short-circuit time, and the data between
N3 and the next N2 were the data during the arc burning
time. The short-circuit time and arc burning time could be
obtained by the sapling rate.
The welding travel speeds of the above experiment for
underwater wet welding and CO2 welding were both 6 mm/
s, and the total acquisition times of the two experiments were
both 11.67 s. The short-circuit time of the above experiment
could be obtained by the above method; there were 202 times
short-circuit transfers during the underwater wet welding pro-
cess, and the average short-circuit time was 10.5 ms and 12
times arc blowouts; and there were 212 times short-circuit
transfers during the CO2 welding process; the average short-
circuit time was 4.84 ms, and no arc blowout existed.
560
Fig. 5 Current and voltage waveform of CO2 welding
3.2 Analysis of probability density distribution
Probability analysis is another commonly used method for
analyzing the welding process. Figure 7 showed the prob-
ability distribution of the welding voltage. From Fig. 7, it
could be seen that there were two salient on the wave-
form; the small salient represented the short-circuit peri-
od, and the big salient represented the arc burning period.
The steeper the salient and the more symmetrical the sa-
lient, it meant that the distribution of the voltage was
narrower and the arc was more stable. From the figure,
it could also be seen that the short-circuit voltage of un-
derwater welding was smaller than the voltage of CO2
welding, and the arc burning voltage of underwater
welding was bigger than the CO2 welding; this meant that
the voltage probability density distribution was more dis-
persive, so the arc stability was worse.
Fig. 6 Process for finding the
short-circuit data
30
25
Voltage/V
20
15
10
0
200
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2016) 86:557–564
Figure 8 showed the short-circuit time frequency dis-
tribution of CO2 welding and underwater wet welding; the
top figure was the frequency distribution of CO2 welding,
while the bottom figure was the underwater wet welding.
The deviation and variance of the short-circuit time could
be used to describe its uniformity; the deviation and var-
iance of the CO2 welding were 1.818 and 4.121 s, and the
deviation and variance of underwater wet welding were
2.528 and 5.384 s; it meant that the short-circuit time of
CO2 welding was more stable. From the figure, it could
also be seen that the short-circuit time of underwater wet
welding centered within 7–15 s, while the short-circuit
time of CO2 welding centered within 4–7 s; it meant that
the short-circuit time of underwater welding covered a
long range and was not as stable as the CO2 welding.
This could be also used to explain the reason of the in-
stability of underwater wet welding.
400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000 2200
Sampling No.
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2016) 86:557–564 561

Fig. 7 Voltage probability

CO2 weld
density distribution 2
10 Underwater wet weld

0
10

n[%]
-2
10

-4
10
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
U/V

4 Analysis of arc stability
4.1 Arc stability analysis based on variable coefficient
The obtained voltage was stored in the computer as a data set;
the fluctuation of the data could be used to analyze the stability
of the process; variation and variable coefficient (the ratio
between the variance and mean value) could be used to judge
the fluctuation [20]. The smaller the variation and the variable
coefficient, the more stable the arc. Usually, the coefficient
value was very small, and its reciprocal δ was used to judge
the arc stability, the bigger the δ value, the more stable the arc.
Experiments were done to compare the differences be-
tween CO2 welding and underwater wet welding. Table 2
showed the variable coefficient analysis of CO2 welding and
underwater wet welding. From the table, it could be seen that
when the weld current was kept const, the bigger the welding
voltage, the more stable the arc, and when the welding voltage
was kept constant, the bigger the welding current, the less
stable the arc, and the stability of underwater wet welding
changed much bigger. It meant that, when the weld current
was fixed, higher welding voltage was needed to obtain a
stable welding arc. In underwater wet welding, the welding
current range was narrower than the CO2 welding; this meant
that in underwater welding, the matching degree between
welding voltage and welding current required more strict
conditions.
4.2 Range analysis of underwater wet welding
From the above analysis, it could be seen that the arc stability
of underwater wet welding was not stable compared to CO2
welding; to analyze the influence of different parameters on
the arc stability in underwater wet welding and to control the
welding quality, orthogonal experiments were done. Besides
welding current (I) and welding voltage (U), welding speed
(V) and the contact tube-to-work distance (D) were also con-
sidered. Table 3 showed the welding parameters and the cor-
responding reciprocal of variable coefficients.
Table 4 showed the calculated δ values under the same
level of every parameter, and range value R was the range
of different parameters; it was calculated by the maximum

Fig. 8 Short-circuit time 40

frequency distribution 35
30
Frequency

25
20
15
10
5
0
0 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
Time/ms

40
35
Frequency

30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 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
Time/ms
562 Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2016) 86:557–564

Table 2 Analysis of variable coefficients Table 4 Mean value and range value of different parameters

No. Weld current Weld voltage CO2 welding Underwater U I D V

wet welding
Mean value 1 1.68 4.125 3.396 2.32
1 200 24 15.5025 3.2121 Mean value 2 2.664 3.039 2.804 3.807
2 220 24 12.1172 2.2891 Mean value 3 3.394 3.039 3.066 3.055
3 240 24 7.8109 2.2695 Mean value 4 4.971 2.452 3.443 3.528
4 260 24 6.8796 2.6262 Range R 3.291 1.673 0.639 1.487
5 280 24 5.5090 2.3613
6 240 20 2.6030 1.4175
7 240 22 4.4433 1.7046 4.3 Sensitivity analysis of underwater wet welding
8 240 26 19.1751 5.6983
9 240 28 22.1062 10.6189 Mathematical model of underwater wet welding for arc stabil-
ity could be constructed using multiple curvilinear regression
analysis. The mathematical model simulating the relationship
between the reciprocal of variable coefficients (δ) and the
and minimum mean values of every parameter, and the welding parameters (I, U, v, D) could be obtained by Eq. (1)
range value could be used to judge the influences of dif-
δ ¼ ea0 I a1 U a2 ν a3 Da4 ð1Þ
ferent parameters on the arc stability. From Table 4, it
could be seen that the arc voltage had the biggest impact Taking the natural logarithm of Eq. (1), the above equation
on the arc stability, and the contact tube-to-work distance could be expressed by the following linear mathematical form:
had the least impact. According to the influence of the
four parameters on arc stability, it could be seen that with- lnδ ¼ a0 þ a1 lnI þ a2 lnU þ a3 lnν þ a4 lnD ð2Þ
in the scope of proper welding conditions, the smaller the
The regression coefficients of the above empirical formula
welding current, the bigger the welding voltage, the faster
could be calculated using a Matlab program, according to the
the welding speed, the welding arc will be more stable.
experimental data shown in Table 3. Substituting these coef-
Combining with the previous analysis, it could be seen
ficients into Eq. (1), the following empirical formula could be
that the welding voltage played an important role in the
obtained:
arc stability.
δ ¼ e−3:0963 I −1:7773 U 4:2187 ν 0:5826 D−0:2244 ð3Þ

The adequacy of the model and the significance of coeffi-

Table 3 Orthogonal experiment of underwater wet welding cients were tested by applying the analysis of variance tech-
nique and F test. Table 5 shows the R-square statistic, the F
No. U (V) I (A) D (mm) V (mm/s) Reciprocal of variable
coefficients (δ) statistic and p value for the full model. The R-square is 0.9005
while the p value<0.05; it is evident that the model was ade-
1 22 220 11 4 1.7354 quate. To ensure the accuracy of the developed equations and
2 22 240 13 5 1.6892 survey the spread of the values, results were again plotted using
3 22 260 15 6 1.8570 scatter graph. This graph of measured vs calculated values of
4 22 280 17 7 1.4384 the reciprocal of variable coefficients is presented in Fig. 9. The
5 24 220 13 6 2.9831 line of best fit for plotted points was also drawn using regres-
6 24 240 11 7 3.5903 sion computation. It could be seen that the measure values and
7 24 260 17 4 1.8801 the calculated values by Eq. (3) had a good linear relationship.
8 24 280 15 5 2.2015 Sensitivity analysis was a method that could be used to
9 26 220 15 7 4.4719 judge the key influence factors [21–23]; this method was used
10 26 240 17 6 3.1459 to analyze the influence degree of different welding parameters
11 26 260 11 5 4.0263
12 26 280 13 4 1.9339 Table 5 Variance analysis for mathematical models for the reciprocal
13 28 220 17 5 7.3092 of variable coefficients
14 28 240 15 4 3.7319
Statistics R-square F statistic p value
15 28 260 13 7 4.6101
16 28 280 11 6 4.2336 δ 0.9005 24.8792 0
Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2016) 86:557–564 563

based on these empirical equations. The sensitivities of

welding parameters on arc stability could be qualified by the
derivation of the sensitivity equation. If the arc stability with
respect to a certain parameter was positive, the arc stability
will increase as this parameter increases, whereas negative
sensitivities state the opposite.
Substituting orthogonal experiment parameters into
Eqs. 4–7, the sensitivity values for corresponding welding
parameters were obtained. Figure 10 shows the obtained re-
sults; from the figure, it could be seen that weld current and
tube-to–work distance had comparatively less impact on the
arc stability, and weld voltage and weld speed had more im-
pact on arc stability.
Fig. 9 Accuracy of the calculated reciprocal of variable coefficients with
respect to measured data

on arc stability. The sensitivity equations for various parameters 5 Conclusions

on the arc stability was obtained by partially differentiating
Eq. (3), and the reciprocal of variable coefficients sensitivity Arc sensor was used to obtain the welding current and voltage
with respect to various welding parameters were obtained as information in underwater wet welding, and the information
follows: was compared with the CO 2 welding. Algorithms for
obtaining the short-circuit time was proposed, and the differ-
∂δ 4:2178e−3:0963 U 3:2178 v0:5826 ences between underwater wet welding and CO2 welding
¼ ð4Þ
∂U I 1:7773 D0:2244 were compared based on the algorithm. Experiment results
∂δ −1:7773e−3:0963 U 4:2178 v0:5826 showed that the arc stability of underwater wet welding was
¼ ð5Þ
∂I I 2:7773 D0:2244 much worse than CO2 welding. Arc stability was analyzed
based on the reciprocal of variable of coefficients, and it was
∂δ 0:58263e−3:0963 U 4:2178 v−0:4174
¼ ð6Þ found that arc voltage plays a positive role on the arc stability
∂v I 1:7773 D0:2244 in underwater wet welding; to improve the arc voltage prop-
∂δ −0:2244e−3:0963 U 4:2178 v0:5826 erly, the arc stability could be improved. Welding current and
¼ ð7Þ contact tube-to-work distance have negative influence on the
∂D I 1:7773 D−1:2244
arc stability.
The purpose of the analysis was to show the effect of This is a work in process; underwater wet welding is a
welding parameters by the direct sensitivity analysis technique complex process which has many different characteristics

Fig. 10 Histogram of
sensitivities of arc stability on
welding parameters
564
compared with atmospheric in-air welding because of the wa-
ter environment. In our future work, other sensors such as
spectrometer, high-speed video camera will be used to moni-
tor the process to obtain more information reflecting the
welding quality, so as to find the fundamental influence fac-
tors for underwater welding quality.
Acknowledgments This work was supported by the National Natural
Science Foundation of China under grant no. 51105103 and China Post-
doctoral Science Foundation under grant nos. 2012 M510945 and 2013
T60362, Project (HIT.NSRIF.2015115) supported by the Natural Scien-
tific Research Innovation Foundation in Harbin Institute of Technology.
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