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Procedia Engineering 10 (2011) 27822785

ICM11

Assessment of Heat Affected Zone of Submerged Arc Welding Process through Digital Image Processing
Aniruddha Ghosha* ,Somnath Chattopadhyayab ,R.K.Dasb,P.K.Sarkarb
a

Department of Mechanical Engineering,Govt College of Engg& Textile Technology,Berhampore,WB,India b ME&MME Dept,ISM,Dhanbad,India

Abstract Submerged arc welding (SAW) is a high quality, high deposition rate welding process commonly used to join plates of higher thickness in load bearing components. This process of arc welding provides a purer and cleaner high volume weldment that has relatively a higher material deposition rate compared to the traditional welding methods. A common issue in the application of SAW process raises a concern about the uncertainties involved with the heat affected zone (HAZ) in and around the weldment. The most intriguing issue is about HAZ softening that imparts some uncertainties in the welded quality. It increases the probability of fatigue failures at the weakest zones caused by the heating and cooling cycle of the weld zone. An attempt has been made in this paper to assess the heat affected zone of submerged arc welding of structural steel plates through the analysis of the grain structure by means of digital image processing techniques 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ICM11
Keywords: SAW, digital image processing, HAZ

1. Introduction It is imperative from all above that characterization of HAZ softening is of critical importance in case of SAW process. However, no such work provides a knowledge base for the prediction of the HAZ hardness or the classification of HAZ in SAW. In view of the above information it becomes very clear that the critical investigation to assess the grain structure through some reliable digital image processing were not reported for structural steel plates. Therefore, it is evident that not much work has been reported related to the analysis of the HAZ softening and hardening phenomena of SAW process to the best of knowledge of the authors. Few of the works as mentioned above are there to create an appropriate prelude to go for such in depth analysis of the characterization of HAZ hardness in SAW method of coalescence. 1.1. Experimental Procedure The experiment was conducted with the MEMCO semiautomatic welding equipment [figure 1] with constant voltage rectifier. Flux used is ADOR Auto melt Gr II AWS/SFA 5.17(Granular flux), Electrode selected is ADOR 3.15 diameter copper coated wire, Test Piece is 400 x 75 x 10 mm square butt joint, and weld position is flat with electrode positive and positioned perpendicular to the plate. The job 400x25x10 mm was firmly fixed to a base plate
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*Corresponding author: aniruddha_ghosh27@rediffmail.com

1877-7058 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of ICM11 doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2011.04.462

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by means of tack welding and then the welding was carried. The slag was removed and the job was allowed to cool down. The welded sections were cut by saw cutter and they were ground by surface grinding machine and polished with leather cloth. The jointed sections were put into the microscope and the images were captured through image grabber of a TV tuner card. The images processed through digital image processing functions of MATLAB 6.0 software.

Fig. 1 SAW process taking place at the welding lab

1.2. Digital Image Processing

Digital image processing (DIP) refers to processing digital images by means of a digital computer. DIP methods stems from two principal application areas: improvement of pictorial information for human interpretation and processing of image data for storage, transmission and representation for autonomous machine perception. An image may be defined as a two-dimensional function, f(x,y), where x and y are spatial (plane) coordinates, and the amplitude of f at any pair of coordinates (x,y) is called the intensity or grey level of the image at that point. When x,y and the amplitude values of f are all finite, discrete quantities, we call the image a digital image. A digital image is composed of a finite number of elements, each of which has a particular location and value. These elements are referred to as picture elements, image elements, pels and Pixels. Intensity image is a data matrix whose values represent intensity within some range at a particular location. In binary image each pixel assumes only two discrete values either 0 (Black) or 1 (white). Morphology is a technique of image processing based on shapes. The value of each pixel in the output image is based on a comparison of the corresponding pixel in the input image with its neighbors. By choosing the size and shape of the neighborhood, one can construct a morphological operation that is sensitive to specific shapes in the input image. These functions perform common image processing tasks, such as contrast enhancement, noise removal, thinning, skeletonization, filling, and segmentation. The input image [figure 2] was further processed to assess the grain growth due to rapid heating and cooling process related to submerged arc welding process.

Fig. 2 Microstructure at the welded Fig. 3 Transformed figure 1 for Figure 4 Complement image of fig.3. zone of 50 Magnification further extraction of the features of grain

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Figure 5 Binary image of figure4.

Figure 6 Image after different morphological operations

Figure 7 Image in which stray pixels are removed.

The image [figure 3] is complemented so as to convert the dark zones in previous image into bright zones and then it is converted into binary image [figure5] to remove the background. The image [figure 6] is processed through various operations like cleaning, spurring etc to improve the quality of the image and to obtain a more accurate result. In the final image [figure 7], isolated pixels were removed.
Table 1 Grain distribution as per the Digital Image Processing Tool

Total Grains in the Image 195

Area of the Grains 1.0167e+004

Area of the Total Image 1.3873e+005

% Area of Grains 6.8281%

The Heat Affected Zone related to submerged arc welding process is significantly less. The grain growth are even lower than the 10% [table1]of the total area as observed by digital image processing tool and that justifies the low level of heat affected zone of the process. The grains are predominantly of smaller variety and the counts for larger grain are almost negligible as it is reveled in the bar chart [figure 7]. The absence of larger size grains in the image gives the confirmatory evidence of the narrow HAZ of SAW process. The quality and the soundness of the weld in comparison to the competing welding methodologies of structural steel plates can be convincingly established by the tangible and unambiguous results obtained from digital image processing tools.

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2.Conclusions The Heat Affected Zone related to submerged arc welding process is significantly less. The grain growth are even lower than the 10% of the total area as observed by digital image processing tool and that justifies the low level of heat affected zone of the process. The grains are predominantly of smaller variety and the counts for larger grain are almost negligible. The absence of larger size grains in the image vouch for the soundness of the weld in comparison to the competing welding methodologies of structural steel plates.

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