Effects of lateral wind on the rotating arc sensing and the weld seam tracking in a horizontal welding process

The lateral wind was adopted in this paper to reduce the molten pool dropping during horizontal welding process, and the welding seam forming and rotating arc sensing characteristics under the influence of the lateral wind were studied. A plane fitting method was developed to detect the welding seam deviation and the electrode contact tip-to-workpiece distance (CTWD) based on the welding current signals. The experimental results showed that the molten pool dropping would be reduced by controlling the lateral wind speed appropriately. However, with the increasing of lateral wind speed, the stability of the arc and the accuracy of the sensing decreased. A soft threshold wavelet filtering method was designed to reduce the noise interference, and a fuzzy controlling method was developed to adjust the height of welding torch and control it to track the weld seam. The horizontal weld seam forming and tracking were primarily realized through the developed method.