Cold metal transfer gas metal arc welding apparatus and method of operation
AssigneeUnited Technologies Corporation
InventorWilliam M. Rose
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A cold metal transfer (CMT) contact tip has a substantially copper-free contact surface defining a wire passage. The CMT contact tip is used with a CMT welding apparatus having a weld wire and a wire feeder for feeding and oscillating the weld wire forward and backward through the wire passage where the weld wire shares a concentric axis with the wire passage.
Claims20
A cold metal transfer (CMT) welding apparatus, comprising:
- a CMT contact tip having a contact surface that is a substantially copper-free metal that contains essentially no copper;
- a weld wire in physical contact with the contact surface;
- and
- a CMT wire feeder constructed and arranged to feed the weld wire through the CMT contact tip with an axially oscillating motion with respect to a centerline axis of the CMT contact tip.
A cold metal transfer (CMT) contact tip for use with a CMT welding apparatus, the CMT welding apparatus having a wire feeder for feeding and oscillating a weld wire forward and backward through and sharing a concentric axis with a wire passage in the CMT contact tip, the CMT contact tip comprising:
- a substantially copper-free contact surface defining the wire passage, wherein the substantially copper-free contact surface contains essentially no copper.
A method for welding a workpiece, the method comprising the steps of:
- installing a cold metal transfer (CMT) contact tip having a substantially copper-free metal contact surface into a CMT welding device;
- feeding a weld wire through the CMT contact tip such that the weld wire axially oscillates along a centerline axis of the CMT contact tip and in contact with the contact surface;
- and
- depositing material from the weld wire on the workpiece to form a substantially copper-free weld, wherein the substantially copper-free metal contact surface has a sufficiently small quantity of copper (or zero copper) such that performance of the substantially copper-free weld will not be measurably altered due to copper contamination.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.