Effects of metal vapor on plasma state in helium gas tungsten arcs

Abstract

In order to investigate effects of metal vapor on the plasma state in welding process, electron temperature in helium Gas Tungsten Arc (GTA) plasma during welding was measured by using the laser scattering method. Furthermore, density distributions of metal ions were also measured by using the spectroscopic analysis. Our results showed that plasma during welding consisted of two plasma regions, namely, pure helium plasma region and quasi-metal plasma region.