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Narrow gap welding of 316L thick-section steel with cold metal transition pulsed arc swing

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Abstract

Narrow gap welding of 316L stainless steel thick plate was carried out using the cold metal transition pulsed wire-arc swing method. The effects of heat input, arc swing, and shielding mode on weld shaping and lack of fusion were investigated, and microstructure and tensile properties of welded joints were analyzed and characterized. The results indicate that arc swing amplitude was the primary factor affecting sidewall fusion. The tendency of undercut and incomplete fusion at the weld toe increased with the increase of wire feeding speed. Narrow gap weld with built-in shielding was easy to produce pores. The microstructure of welded joints was mostly represented by twin crystals in HAZ and columnar dendrites in the weld. Solidification sub-boundaries were produced between dendritic crystal clusters in the middle of the weld under high heat input, resulting in severe regional segregation and crystalline cracks that extended along subgrain boundaries. The microhardness of the weld and HAZ was greater than that of the base material. The tensile strength of welded joints was comparable to that of base material with good mechanical properties.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 52005007 and No. 52105312, and the Natural Science Fund of Anhui Province Education Office, No. 2022AH0S0322.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan, 243032, China

    Wei Meng, Kai Chen, Qinyue Pan, Kai Ye, Zhenhua Liu, Qunshuang Ma, Lei Hu, Wenbo Du & Xiaohui Yin

  2. Anhui Key Lab of Materials Science and Processing, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan, 243002, Anhui, China

    Wei Meng, Lei Hu & Xiaohui Yin

Authors
  1. Wei Meng
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Contributions

Wei Meng: conceptualization, methodology, writing—review and editing.

Kai Chen: data curation, writing—original draft.

Qinyue Pan: supervision.

Kai Ye: investigation.

Zhenhua Liu: investigation, resources.

Qunshuang Ma: formal analysis.

Lei Hu: validation.

Wenbo Du: formal analysis.

Xiaohui Yin: project administration.

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Correspondence to Wei Meng.

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Wei Meng and Kai Chen are the co-first authors.

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Meng, W., Chen, K., Pan, Q. et al. Narrow gap welding of 316L thick-section steel with cold metal transition pulsed arc swing. Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-024-13601-z

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