What is the general overview of the development of welding materials?

Welding materials is a general term for the materials used in welding, including welding electrodes, welding consumables, metal powders, fluxes, and shielding gases. The welding materials industry has been developing rapidly and is primarily categorized into argon arc welding, CO2 arc welding, oxygen cutting, and other welding processes.

What is the general overview of the development of welding materials?

It can be seen that in 2010 China’s apparent steel consumption was approximately 770 million tonnes, with the ratio of welding consumable consumption to steel consumption standing at about 0.6%, corresponding to a total welding consumable consumption of roughly 4.65 million tonnes in 2010.

Since 2010, China has seen the emergence of nearly a thousand welding-material manufacturers, giving rise to several large enterprise clusters centered in Tianjin, Zigong, Shanghai, Kunshan, Jinzhou, and other regions. As the domestic market continues to expand, internationally renowned welding-material producers have increasingly established manufacturing facilities in China, leveraging their technological and capital advantages to capture market share and engage in direct competition with domestic firms.

China’s welding materials industry is highly market-oriented. Ordinary, low-grade welding electrodes and copper brazing consumables are characterized by low technological content and low barriers to entry, leading to severe overcapacity in recent years. As competition among manufacturers intensifies, the industry has adopted large-scale, cluster-based business models. Meanwhile, some domestic firms have accelerated product restructuring while leveraging low-price strategies to erode market share and gain greater market penetration.

In China’s welding materials industry, manual welding electrodes still dominate; in 2008, electrodes accounted for 48.9% of total welding materials consumption. Meanwhile, solid and flux-cored automatic welding consumables together represented 40.5% of the market. Compared with the 80% share observed in industrially advanced countries such as Japan and South Korea, the proportion of higher-automation welding consumables in China remains relatively low.

Therefore, China’s future development strategy for welding consumables will gradually shift toward replacing manual products with high-quality, highly automated alternatives. Manual welding electrodes will progressively evolve toward higher strength, greater toughness, lower hydrogen content, and greater environmental friendliness, thereby meeting the diverse technical requirements of different weldment types, joint configurations, and service conditions.

Currently, the welding industry is developing rapidly, and welding materials are mainly categorized into argon arc welding, CO2 shielded metal arc welding, oxygen cutting, conventional welding, gas-shielded welding, and self-shielded welding.

Argon welding

The primary welding consumables used in TIG welding include: a TIG welder (essential), a TIG torch (complete with fabric cover, two small gas hoses, main cable, torch tip, tungsten electrode holder, ceramic nozzle, and copper contact tip), TIG welding wire (common grades include 308L, 316, etc.), stainless steel welding electrodes, tungsten electrodes (typically available in sizes 1.6 mm × 150 mm, 2.4 mm × 175 mm, and 3.2 mm × 175 mm), and a TIG welding helmet.

Carbon Dioxide Welding

The welding materials primarily used for CO2 welding include CO2 welding machines (essential; available in various types tailored to different industries), CO2 welding guns, complete CO2 welding assemblies, bent tubes, insulators, connectors, conductive components, CO2 welding machines, and CO2 manual welding helmets.

Gas-shielded welding

Gas-shielded welding primarily refers to welding performed under a shielding gas atmosphere. The main shielding gases include carbon dioxide (CO2) shielding and an 80% argon/20% CO2 shielding mixture. In this welding process, the shielding gas is continuously supplied to the weld zone to isolate it from the surrounding air.

Self-protected welding

Self-shielded welding refers to a welding process in which no external shielding gas is used; instead, the flux-cored wire itself provides the necessary protection. This method is also commonly known as open-arc welding.