Microstructure and mechanical characteristics of the welding zone of a shipbuilding steel welded in submerged arc welding with very high heat input

Abstract

High heat input welding is an alternative that has been employed to reduce the number of welding passes in thick structures with increasing deposition rate. This has led to the development of steels and consumables that allow to obtain joints with acceptable level of toughness in the Heat Affected Zone, even with very high heat inputs. However, the metallurgical consequences, which this procedure can cause in the welding zone, are not very clear yet. This research evaluates the heat input effect up to 17.1 kJ/mm on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the welding zone obtained in the welding of a TMCP EH36 shipbuilding steel in single pass with the submerged arc multi-electrodes with addition of cold wire. The microstructure was compared with that of welds performed with lower heat input and hardness maps were produced and compared, also evaluating the efficiency of consumables generally applied for welding and high input. It was observed that the molybdenum content in the weld acts directly to the maintenance of the mechanical properties of the welding zone in the high heat input welding.