Effect of Groove Conditions on the Mechanical Properties of Welds Produced by the Combined Welding Process of Flux Cored Arc and Electro Gas in EH36 TMCP Steel Plate for Hull Structures

Characterization of microstructures and mechanical properties of 83mm thickness EH36-TM welds produced by the combined flux cored arc (FCA) and electro gas (EG) welding processes has been studied with the two different groove conditions, single-V (SV) and double-V (DV) bevels. The welding consumables used for FCA and EG welding processes were ASME/AWS A5.29 (E81T1-K2) and A5.26 (EG72T), respectively. Experimental results showed that all the mechanical properties of welds such as tensile property, CVN toughness and Vickers hardness met IACS requirements. The tensile strength of EG welded plates were reduced by approximately 4% (DV: 3.8%, SV: 4.2%) compared to the base metal. The hardness value of SV-beveled weld metal was slightly lower than that of DV-beveled one. There were no significant differences as per welding groove conditions except for the weld metal. In addition, at the fusion line, the toughness of SV condition was 20J lower and the weld metal was 40J lower than DV condition, respectively. On the basis of microstructural analysis, grain boundary ferrite (GBF) structures for SV condition were 2 times higher volume fraction than for DV condition and their packet sizes were coarsened to almost double. It was thus suggested that the GBF volume fractions and packet sizes in the weld metal of EH36-TM steel plates are the most important factors affecting the mechanical properties of the combined FCA and EG welded joint. Nevertheless, all the results of welds with both DV and SV conditions were found to be excellent.

선체구조용 EH36 TMCP 후판의 FCAW 및 EGW 조합 용접부 기계적 성질에 미치는 개선조건의 영향