5 Pulsed MIG Welding Copper Nickel Alloy Part 5 of 5
Channel: coppervideo
Date: 2014-04-07

Section 5 -  Copper Nickel Alloy -- Pulsed MIG Welding
The Copper Development Association is pleased to present a series of video presentations covering the welding of copper-nickel alloy.  This video is the fifth in a series designed to provide welders with the principles of joining 90-10 and 70-30 engineering grades of copper-nickel. Here we consider the Pulsed Arc MIG Welding process.


The Gas Metal Arc process, or MIG for short, offers much higher deposition rates than the TIG process. This is an advantage in welding thicker material. The MIG process is further identified by the arc transfer mode. Copper-nickel alloys can be welded by all three of the most common transfers: short-circuiting, spray arc and pulsed arc. Pulsed-arc transfer embodies features of the short-circuiting and spray transfer processes and is well suited to typical copper-nickel fabrications. The pulsed-arc current is produced using a power source that controls wave forms, and frequencies that pulse the welding current and voltage. 
Some of the advantages of the Pulsed MIG process are: 
-Reduced spatter compared to short-circuiting, giving increased deposition & minimum cleanup
-lower fume levels 
-Better control of heat input allowing less distortion
-Lower tendency for incomplete fusion than with 
short-circuiting transfer

Use 70-30 Copper-nickel filler metal for both 90-10 and 70-30 copper-nickel base metals.
A wire diameter of 0.9 mm is used in this demo, although a 1.14 mm larger diameter wire can also  be used on thicker materials.