The tandem metal inert gas (MIG) process uses two wires that are continuously fed through a special welding torch and disbursed to form a single molten pool. Within the contact tip of the modern approach, the wires are electrically insulated from one another. This study identified the effect of welding electrode spacing on the distortion of AA5052 aluminum plates and different mechanical properties including hardness and thermal cycle using grey relational analysis. Plate distortion was subsequently predicted using the grey prediction model GM (1, 6). This research used a pair of 400 mm × 75 mm × 5 mm of AA5052 plates and electrode distances of 18, 27, and 36 mm. The welding current, voltage, welding speed, and argon flow rate were 130 A, 23 V, 7 mm/s, and 17 L/min, respectively. The temperature was measured using a type-K thermocouple at 10, 20, 30, and 40 mm from the center of the weld bead. The smallest distortion at an electrode distance of 27 mm was 1.4 mm. At an electrode distance of 27 mm, the plate may reach a proper peak temperature where the amount of heat input and dissipation rate are similar to those for electrode distances of 18 mm and 36 mm. The highest relative VHN of 57 was found in the BM, while the lowest, 46, was found in the WM, showing good agreement with their respective grain sizes. Six parameters were designed using grey relational analysis (GRA) and subsequently employed in the grey prediction model GM (1, 6). Process evaluation results show that predictions for welding distortions are consistent with actual results, thus, the GM (1, 6) model can be used as a predictive model for welding distortions of 5052 aluminum plates.
Keywords: aluminum AA5052; grey prediction model GM (1, 6); grey relational analysis; tandem MIG welding.