Diagnostic Studies in the Copper‐coating Process: A Case Study

Reviews a real‐life investigation carried out on copper coating of CO⊂2 welding wire. The major quality problems were non‐uniformity in coating thickness and other associated problems. The factors identified as responsible are speed of drawing the wire, acid, ferrous and copper sulphate. Describes three stages of the study. The results obtained revealed a number of interesting facts about the process. The extent to which the copper coating is influenced by these factors independently and interactively was vividly brought out by factorial experiments, fractional factorial experiments and standard orthogonal arrays. These results show various intricate dynamics of interest to a process controller.