• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• v.43
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• pp.76-78
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• 2004

The phenomenon of weld shrinkage mainly occurs owing to residual stress by heating, which largely effects on welding quality, Actually as the shrinkage rate depends on the weld deposit amount, so it is desired that the sectional area of weld joint shall be reduced. In this respect the Electron beam welding has more profitable position compare to Narrow-gap TIG welding which is even superior to other arc welding processes. In case of thick austenitic stainless steel the shrinkage rate of Electron beam welding has about $10\%$ of Narrow-gap TIG welding's, which means that residual stress is a lot less than that of Narrow-gap TIG welding. And heat input and welded section area also indicate large difference between two processes.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.85-91
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• 2003

Narrow gap welding has many advantages over conventional V-grooved butt welding such as high productivity, small deformation and improved mechanical property of joints. With narrower groove gap, less arc heat input is expected will all the other advantages of narrow gap welding. The main defects of narrow gap welding include the lack of root fusion, convex bead surface and irregular surface, all of which have negative effects on the next welding pass. This paper suggests an up-and-down torch oscillation for ultra narrow gap welding with gap size of 5mm and investigates the proper welding conditions to fulfill the reliable and high welding quality. First, GMA welding model was suggested for ultra narrow gap welding system with Halmoy's model referenced for wire melting modeling. And the arc length in ultra narrow gap was defined. Secondly, based on the experimental results of up-and-down torch oscillation welding, phase shift of current and wire extension length were simulated for varying oscillation frequency to show that weld the bead shape in ultra narrow gap welding can be predicted. As the result, it was confirmed that reliable weld quality in ultra narrow gap welding can be achieved with up-and-down torch oscillation above 15Hz due to its ability to provide uniform heat input along the sidewall of gap.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.40-46
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• 1986

This investigation studied the toughness variations in the narrow gap weldment with the notch location. Specimens with the notch at the center of the weld metal showed the lowest toughness. As the location of notchmoves to fusion line, the impact properties improve reaching a maximum at the fusion boundaries. This improvement in toughness can be explained by the microstructural feature showing in the narrow gap weldment. "one pass/layer" technique performed in narrow gap welding results in the increased proportion of refined structure as approaching to fusion boundary from weld center and thus leave 100% refined structure along the fusion boundary. HAZ also shows 100% refined structure with respect to base metal structure accompanied with the significant suppression of ductile-brittle transition temperature.mperature.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.82-84
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• 2005

Among the advanced welding processes which are superior to conventional process, Electron beam welding and Narrow-gap TIG welding are most prospective in being applicable for the heavy industry field. With STS316LN, which is high strengthened austenitic stainless steel, the characteristic evaluation for these welding processes was carried out through the mechnical tests and property analyses. For the tensile strength EBW is better while in reverse for the yield strength. In Narrow-gap TIG the distribution of hardness values has some deviation according to the thickness direction while EBW has a tendency of a litter high hardness values in weld metal. After EB welding brings the reduction of nitrogen content, in TIG welding weld metal depends on the contents of welding material. Both processes have almost austenitic structure, but weld metal of EBW is also shown terrific structure

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.32-32
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• 2009

Electric Resistance Welding (ERW) process is the most efficient process to manufacture the linepipe. To develop the high performance ERW linepipe using the high strength and the high alloy steels, the modulation of input power waveform such as sinusoidal waveform is introduced because the conventional ERW technology is not sufficient enough to produce the high quality linepipe due to its strength and high alloy contents (high Ceq). In this article, the material used for the experiment was API X60 with 8.2mm thickness, and ERW simulator at POSCO was used to develop a waveform control system for the power modulation. The frequency of power modulation was varied from 50Hz to 150Hz with the fixed amplitude of ${\pm}2%$ power. The non-modulated power input and the modulated power input cases are conducted to demonstrate the variation of the narrow gap length and the arcing frequency due to power modulation. From results of the non-modulated power input case, the excessive power causes the longer narrow gap length and the low arcing frequency due to the large heat input and the strong electro magnetic force that increase the weld defect. On the contrary, the small narrow gap length and the high arcing frequency reduce the weld defect. After modulating the power input with 50Hz and 100Hz at the fixed power, the arcing frequency increases, but the narrow gap length does not change much. The high arcing frequency prevents the formation of weld defect because the sweeping frequently cleans the oxides on the narrow gap edges. As a result, the manufacturing window can be expanded by the power modulation that provides the stable ERW process for the quality improvement of the linepipe made from the high strength/high alloy steels.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.96-101
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• 2004

Conventionally, SMAW process was applied to join pipes of RCL, which caused lot of loss in time and cost due to excessive heat input and defects in joining section. Recently, narrow-gap welding(NGW) process was introduced to overcome the disadvantages of SMAW. However, the application of NGW to nuclear power plant is not yet common because safety of NGW process is not proven. In present paper, the welded coupons are made of carbon steel. They are manufactured under different processes; general welding(GW), post-weld heat treatment(PWHT) after GW, repair welding after GW and PWHT with repair welding after GW in carbon steel. Performed are various mechanical tests investigation of microstructure, hardness test, tensile test at room and high temperature, bending test, impact test and J-R test. It is verified that the mechanical properties of carbon steel are greatly changed after repair welding process due to applied heat flux, and that the effect of PWHT is beneficial.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.670-677
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• 2003

Although Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW or TIG welding) is considered as high quality and precision welding process, it also has demerit of low melting rate. Narrow-gap TIG welding which has narrow joint width reduces the groove volume remarkably, so it could be shorten the welding time and decrease the overall shrinkage in heavy wall pipe welding. Generally Narrow-gap TIG welding is used as orbital welding process, it is important to select the optimum conditions for the automatic control welding This paper looks at the application and metallurgical properties on Narrow-gap TIG welding joint of heavy wall large austenitic stainless steel pipe to determine the deposition efficiency, the resultant shrinkage and fracture toughness. The fracture toughness depends slightly on the welding heat input.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.79-83
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• 2010

The conventional welding technique such as shield metal arc welding has been mostly applied to the piping system of the nuclear power plants. It is well known that this welding technique causes the overheating and welding defects due to the large groove angle of weld. On the other hand, the narrow gap welding(NGW) technique has many merits, for instance, the reduction of welding time, the shrinkage of weld and the small deformation of the weld due to the small groove angle and welding bead width comparing with the conventional welds. These characteristics of NGW affect the deformation behavior and the distribution of welding residual stress of NGW, thus it is believed that the residual stress results obtained from conventional welding procedure may not be applied to structural integrity evaluation of NGW. In this paper, the welding residual stress of NGW was predicted using the nonlinear finite element analysis to simulate the thermal and mechanical effects of the NGW. The present results can be used as the important information to perform the flaw evaluation and to improve the weld procedure of NGW.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.706-713
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• 2002

In the multi-pass welding of pressure vessels or ships, the mechanical touch sensor system is generally used together with a manipulator to measure the gap and depth of the narrow gap to perform seam tracking. Unfortunately, such mechanical touch sensors may commit measuring errors caused by the eterioration of the measuring device. An automation system of narrow gap multi-pass welding using a laser vision system which can track the seam line of narrow gap and which can control welding power has been developed. The joint profile of the narrow gap, with 250mm depth and 28mm width, can be captured by laser vision camera. The image is then processed for defining tracking positions of the torch during welding. Then, the real-time correction of lateral and vertical position of the torch can be done by the laser vision system. The adaptive control of welding conditions like welding Currents and welding speeds, can also be performed by the laser vision system, which cannot be done by conventional mechanical touch systems. The developed automation system will be adopted to reduce the idle time of welders, which happens frequently in conventional long welding processes, and to improve the reliability of the weld quality as well.

• International Journal of Korean Welding Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.45-51
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• 2002

In the multi-pass welding of pressure vessels or ships, the mechanical touch sensor system is generally used together with a manipulator to measure the gap and depth of the narrow gap to perform seam tracking. Unfortunately, such mechanical touch sensors may commit measuring errors caused by the deterioration of the measuring device. An automation system of narrow gap multi-pass welding using a laser vision system which can track the seam line of narrow gap and which can control welding power has been developed. The joint profile of the narrow gap, with 250mm depth and 28mm width, can be captured by laser vision camera. The image is then processed for defining tracking positions of the torch during welding. Then, the real-time correction of lateral and vertical position of the torch can be done by the laser vision system. The adaptive control of welding conditions like welding currents and welding speeds, can also be performed by the laser vision system, which cannot be done by conventional mechanical touch systems. The developed automation system will be adopted to reduce the idle time of welders, which happens frequently in conventional long welding processes, and to improve the reliability of the weld quality as well.