Possibilities of a control of the droplet detachment in pulsed gas metal arc welding

With the use of pulsed gas metal arc welding processes, a regular material transfer, resulting in a good weld quality, should be reached. Ideally, in every pulse, exactly one droplet should be detached. Such ideal processes can be achieved by now, but require process knowledge and stable boundary conditions. In most cases, the process is set up in such way, that the droplet detachment is forced through a higher energy input than necessary. Thereby, the energy input is measured per pulse, independent of the moment of the droplet detachment. The aim of the research behind this paper is it to automatically decide, if a droplet has been detached. With this information, a new time interval can be used to statistically analyse the real energy input regarding the material transfer; but also a detachment control can be (and has been) realised, which forces a droplet detachment even under process disturbances or unconfident parameter choices. As a technological vision, the droplet detachment control can be used to optimise the process regarding a lower energy input. So in the last part of this paper, different possibilities of adapting pulse parameters and their potential to reduce the energy input are discussed.