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Dissimilar metal welds (DMWs) are routinely used in the oil and gas industries for structural joining of high-strength steels to eliminate the need for post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) in field welding. Hydrogen-assisted cracking (HAC) can occur in DMWs during subsea service under cathodic protection. DMWs of two material combinations, 8630 steel/FM 625 and F22 steel/FM 625, produced with two welding procedures, non-temper bead (BS1) and temper bead (BS3), in the as-welded and PWHT conditions were investigated in this study. These DMWs were subjected to metallurgical characterization and testing with the delayed hydrogen cracking test (DHCT) to identify the effects of base metal composition, welding and PWHT procedures on their HAC susceptibility. The HAC susceptibility was ranked using the time to failure in the DHCT at loads equivalent to 90% of the base metal yield strength (YS) and the apparent stress threshold for HAC. A criterion for resistance to HAC in the testing conditions of DHCT was also established. The results of this study showed that 8630/FM 625 DMWs were more susceptible to HAC than the F22/FM 625 DMWs. PWHT did not sufficiently reduce the HAC susceptibility of the 8630/FM 625 and F22/FM 625 BS1 welds. DMWs produced using BS3 performed better than BS1 DMWs. The post-weld heat-treated F22/FM 625 BS3 DMW passed the HAC resistance criterion.
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A Contribution to the Analysis of the Effects of Pulsed Current in GTAW Welding of 1-mm-Thick AISI 304 Sheets
GTAW welding with pulsed current has been misinterpreted in some of the classic literature and scientific articles. General conclusions are presented, stating that its use provides greater penetration compared to the use of constant current and that the simple pulsation of the current promotes beneficial metallurgical effects. Therefore, this manuscript presents a critical analysis of this topic and adopts the terminology of thermal pulsation for the situation where the weld undergoes sensitive effects, regarding grain orientation during solidification. For comparison purposes, an index called the form factor (ratio between the root width and the face width of the weld bead) is adopted. It is shown that the penetration of a welding with pulsed current can be worse than constant current depending on the formulation of the adopted procedure. Moreover, metallurgical effects on solidification, such as grain orientation breakage, only occur when there is adequate concatenation between the pulsation frequency and the welding speed. Finally, a thermal simulation of the process showed that the pulsation frequency limits the welding speed so that there is an overlap of the molten pool in each current pulse, and continuity of the bead is obtained at the root. For frequencies of 1 Hz and 2.5 Hz, the limit welding speed was 3.3 mm/s and 4.1 mm/s, respectively.
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- PAR ID:
- 10506691
- Publisher / Repository:
- MDPI
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Metals
- Volume:
- 13
- Issue:
- 8
- ISSN:
- 2075-4701
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1387
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/met13081387
