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Abstract

Aircraft applications make use of Ti–6Al–4V alloy for almost 50% of all alloys used in aerospace industry. Besides this, owing to their high tensile strength to density ratio, high corrosion resistance, and ability to withstand moderately high temperatures without creeping, titanium alloys are used in armor plating, naval ships, spacecraft, and missiles. Aircraft engines and frames are frequently fabricated using welding technology which often involves multiple passes that has direct impact on metallurgical properties of these alloys. In view of the weldability issues of this industrially important alloy, the aim of the present work was to investigate the effect of weld pass on the metallurgical properties of 7-mm-thick Ti–6Al–4V alloy. Ti–6Al–4V weld joints in the butt-welding position were fabricated using 3-pass and 4-pass welding procedure using gas tungsten arc (GTA) welding process in the manual mode. The results of this work show that Ti–6Al–4V alloy is sensitive to welding heat input variation that occurs due to weld pass procedural effects. Further, welding procedures can be designed according to the microstructural and hence mechanical requirements of Ti–6Al–4V alloy by controlling heat input per weld pass suitably.

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Acknowledgements

The infrastructural support in terms of testing facilities provided by Welding Metallurgy Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, and FESEM, Central Research Facility, at SLIET, Longowal, is gratefully acknowledged.

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Correspondence to Bhanu Pratap Gautam.

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Gautam, B.P., Shahi, A.S. Multi-pass weld influence on the microstructure of gas tungsten arc welded Ti–6Al–4V alloy. Int J Adv Eng Sci Appl Math (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12572-023-00346-3

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