Application of double electrode welding as the way to increase welding productivity of fillet welds of bridge structures

One of the ways to solve the task to increase productivity and obtain an enlarged leg in one pass is the use of two-electrode submerged arc welding (welding with a split electrode). When testing this welding method with respect to welding bridge metal structures, it was found that the quality of the welded joints and the productivity of the process substantially depend on the positioning of the electrodes relative to the groove. However, for the effective implementation of this method, a comprehensive study of its functionality for welding of bridge metal structures is necessary to conduct. An effective tool in solving such problems is physical and mathematical modeling, which allows without running a large number of experiments to study the features of the formation of fillet welds. To carry out this analysis, we used the previously developed physical and mathematical model of weld formation in single-arc submerged arc welding, added a description of the spatial position of the split electrode relative to the joint and defined the distribution of the heat flux and pressure of the double arc. It was found that the location of the electrodes with the lagging arc on the web provides better weld formation. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd