Application of flux cored arc welding (fcaw) without pre-heating for heavy structures in ship building fabrication & construction of heavy offshore structural steels /

Abstract

In fusion welding processes, the reason often given to explain the need for preheating, controlling the inter pass temperature (in multi-pass welds), and post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) is to reduce the risk of residual stresses and it can be removed by heating weldment in the heat affected zone (HAZ). Cold cracking is a hydrogen embrittlement phenomenon, often referred to as hydrogen induced cracking or HAZ cracking. During the construction and fabrication of heavy offshore structures, several failures have been noticed during the welding of structures with higher plate thicknesses where preheating is not properly done. However, many welding engineers cannot readily arrange the preheating in offshore structures, oil and gas installations and in other locations where heavy ship building activities are being done. In this context, experimental studies have been performed on transient heat transfer in welding distortion control by using flux-cored arc welding process (Dual Shielded-DS) without application of pre-heating as specified by the various welding international codes. The authors have studied various samples and tested them in which the FCAW welding has been done with and without preheat. The eight-step welding method enunciated by welding standards with preheating has been slightly modified into again eight step method without preheating and still obtained the same strength, toughness, hardness and stiffness. The use of tubular electrodes with very small diameters has extended the use of this process to work pieces of smaller section size. A main advantage of using flux-cored arc welding (DS) is the ease with which specific weld-metal things can be developed. By adding alloying elements to the flux core, resulting in increased tensile strength and hardness. The process is easy to automate and is readily adaptable to flexible manufacturing systems and robotics.