Evaluation of the quality of the shielded metal arc welding process using speckle interferometry

Abstract

Speckle, which is a branch of optics that studies the interference pattern caused by the incidence of coherent light in a material’s surface, has some optical techniques and methods that can be successfully applied to determine properties of materials. In this work we used the method called THSP, Time History Speckle Pattern, in samples made of AISI 1020 carbon steel that were submitted to the shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) process, with the objective of identifying (qualitatively) the level of irregularity on its welded surface, by comparing these samples with a default sample, made with the same material. The technique of spekle by reflection was used for data collection. The results showed quantitative diferences between the default welded sample and the other samples, and there are good perspectives that speckle can be applied to determine the quality of the welding process, since the results showed more accuracy than visual inspection.