Cerium Tungsten Electrodes and Thorium Tungsten Electrode Comparison

With the continuous improvement of welding, cutting, spraying techniques, people require new performance requirement on electrode material such as better active substances and content to reduce the work function to improve the arc performance; higher chemical stability to use in more welding atmosphere and so on.

Material Properties Comparison:
Compared with thorium tungsten electrode, the work function and α-ray dose of cerium tungsten electrode are lower than thorium tungsten electrode, which has better performance advantages and no radiation. Under the same cutting conditions, when the nozzle is leakage, thorium tungsten electrode wear has significantly increased, but little change in cerium tungsten electrodes. This phenomenon also happen in gas discharge lamp, when the oxygen content increase, cerium tungsten electrode has slight change, which can be seen it has good antioxidant properties.

Arc performance comparison:
It was determined that thorium tungsten cathode pressure is small than cerium tungsten, 2% Tn-W13.0V, 2% Ce-W12.0V. The service life is related with cathode spot. In xenon stroke light compared these two electrodes found, cerium tungsten end face has slight cathode spot and has smaller loss, and the service life is longer than thorium tungsten. In emission current density, cerium tungsten arc column euphotic belt is bright and long and emission current density is higher than thorium tungsten. When the diameter is large, the minimum arc stability of various electrodes is similar, with the reduction of diameter, the cerium tungsten electrode arc performance is good than other electrodes. The lowest arc voltage of cerium tungsten is 12V, thorium tungsten arc voltage is 30V, so cerium tungsten arcing is more simple.

From the above comparison found cerium tungsten electrode has better arc performance. This is mainly because it has low work function, so the cathode drop is low and cathode spot is small and the emission is concentration. Meanwhile, when the arc current increases, the arc through large current will produce large magnetic field centripetal force and the arc is compressed, so that the emission current density of cerium tungsten electrodes is increase.

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