IMPACT OF WELDING CURRENT ON MICROSTRUCTURAL AND MECHANICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CMT-WELDED 316L AUSTENITIC STAINLESS STEEL
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4314/njt.2025.5507Keywords:
316L Austenitic Stainless Steel;, Cold Metal Transfer Welding;, Welding CurrentAbstract
316L Austenitic Stainless Steel (ASS) has an extensive demand in engineering applications including the chemical, petrochemical and nuclear sectors. These industries greatly benefit from the exceptional mechanical and corrosion-resistant qualities of 316L ASS welded joint. This study investigates 316L ASS welded joints using Cold Metal Transfer (CMT) welding with 100A, 110A and 120A welding currents at 11V constant voltage applying 309L filler material. The Base Metal (BM) exhibited majorly constant austenitic grains with increasingly higher current promoting the formation of wider Heat Affected Zone (HAZ), more dendritic 316L ASS weld microstructures which allows faster cooling rates; resulting in higher micro hardness, tensile strength and toughness. The result also showed that as the welding current increases from 100A to 120A the HAZ width increased from 26.2 µm to 50.6 µm. The highest hardness (173 HV) was observed at weld zone (WZ) of High Welding Current (HWC) weld joint as compared to Low Welding Current (LWC) and Medium Welding Current (MWC) weld joint with observed hardness of 150 HV and 167HV respectively. The HWC weld joint also exhibited higher tensile strength (665 MPa) as compared to LWC weld joint (597 MPa) and MWC weld joint (574 MPa). The toughness of MWC 45J) was found to be lowest as compared to LWC (66J) and HWC (128J) highest. With these higher mechanical properties due to favorable microstructure from different cooling rates, 316L ASS metal with weldments of 309L filler material is the most applicable material for higher corrosion resistant industrial designs.
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