Argon-Oxygen Gas Blend Basics In Welding

Argon has been used in welding since the 1920s – a period of great advances in welding technology when automatic welding was first introduced.

Today, argon-oxygen blends are used in a wide range of conventional and pulsed spray transfer applications on clean, plain carbon and stainless steel, and both methods can greatly benefit from the use of argon-oxygen gas blends. Typical blends range from one to five percent oxygen and provide good arc stability and very low levels of spatter and fume.

Argon-Oxygen Blend Applications

Argon-oxygen blends are most commonly used for heavy carbon steel welds on farm equipment, ships, automotive assemblies, and in other similar applications. They can also be used for spray arc welding of both ferritic and austenitic stainless steel components. Lower carbon argon-oxygen blends (with one to two percent oxygen) are used when reduced carbon content is desirable in the weld.

Benefits Of Argon-Oxygen Blends

The primary benefit of using an argon-oxygen blend for welding is that it creates a weld pool that is more fluid, with smaller droplet sizes compared to argon-carbon dioxide mixes. Argon-oxygen welding gas blends also provide increased travel speeds, especially on thinner weld materials.

Common Argon-Oxygen Blends

Some of the more common blends of argon-oxygen gases include:

• Argon-oxygen 99 to 1 percent
  A blend with one percent oxygen is primarily used for spray transfer on stainless steel; it provides enough O2 to stabilize the arc and improve the droplet rate and bead appearance.
• Argon-oxygen 98 to 2 percent
  A two percent oxygen blend is a perfect choice for spray arc welding of carbon and low-alloy steels. It creates a greater wetting action than the one percent oxygen mixture; however, bead appearance will be darker and more oxidized for the two percent blends with stainless steels.
• Argon-oxygen 95 to 5 percent
  A five percent oxygen blend is the most commonly used argon-oxygen mixture for general carbon steel welding. This welding blend provides a more fluid but controllable weld pool, and you will see higher travel speeds. Anything higher than five percent oxygen will oxidize an electrode without deoxidizers.

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