Cost Estimation and Quality Comparison for Sound Welds

A number of new materials are being developed for advanced applications like nuclear pressure vessels, missile casing and pressurized chambers for space launching vehicles. These newly developed high strength alloys demanding high strength joining, put rigorous requirements on the manufacturers to weld smartly i.e. sound welds at competitive cost. Welding is a very complex phenomenon and the quality and cost of the weldment is a function of interaction between a number of variables, making it more difficult but still indispensable to estimate the cost effects of different welding processes for smart welds. The primary objective of this research work is to develop, apply and evaluate state of the art methodical approach to compare and select welding processes in a productive environment based on market requirements of quality and costs for aerospace and nuclear applications. A case study based on several welding processes: SMAW, GTAW, pulsed GTAW, GMAW with CO2 and Argon shielding gases and pulsed GMAW is conducted both from quality and cost aspects. For quality analysis, geometrical aspects of the weld beads and for cost analysis, welding parameters and prices of consumables are considered. In appendage to that, sensitivity analysis of the cost for different variables is also conducted to evaluate the effects of variation in the values of significant variables on the cost.