Numerical simulation of the effect of zinc chloride flux on ATIG welding of aluminum

Resumo

In this work, a study based on numerical simulation methods was applied to Activated Tungsten Inert
Gas welding (ATIG welding), a simple variant of TIG welding that consists only of applying a thin layer of flux
immediately before welding. A Finite Element Analysis (FEA) method was used to compare the aluminum TIG
and ATIG weld pool to evaluate the effect of zinc chloride flux on the geometric parameters of the ATIG weld
bead. Previous tests have shown that this flux allows an improvement in the final appearance of the weld surface,
possibly due to the removal of the alumina layer, in addition to a small gain in the penetration of the weld bead
using negative direct current instead of positive direct current and alternating currents, commonly used for welding
aluminum. The results have shown that a possible removal of the alumina layer by the zinc chloride flux on the
aluminum ATIG welding does not influence the weld bead geometry. This result is similar to the outcomes of
other experimental works in the literature.