The Weldability Evaluation of Dissimilar Welds of AISI 347 Stainless Steel to ASTM A335 Low Alloy Steel by Gas Tungesten Arc Welding

In the present study, the Weldability and microstructure of dissimilar welds of AISI 347austenitic stainless steel to ASTM A335 low alloy steel was investigated. For this purpose, gas tungsten arc welding process and two filler metals including ERNICr-3 and ER309L were used. After welding, the microstructure of the different zones of each joint, including weld metals, heat affected zone (HAZ) 1, inter face and unmixed zones (UMZ) 2 were evaluated by using optical microscopy. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) 3 equipped to energy disperse spectrometry (EDS) 4 was used to investigate the precipitates, in order to predict the micro structure of the weld metal and transmission zone in dissimilar joints. In ERNiCr-3 weld metal, the solidification was observed as the completely austenitic and equiaxed dendrite5 which contains the precipitates of carbide complex, and also Niobium segregation was happened in the inter dendrite zones. 309L weld metal was observed as the primary ferrite with austenitic matrix and also microstructure was seen as skeletal ferrite morphology. The epitaxial growth was observed in interface between 347austenitic stainless steel and two filler metals and a narrow zone was observed in interface between A335low alloy steel and filler metals, and also the coarse grains occurred in HAZ zone of both weld metals. Finally, it can be denoted that for the joints between the AISI 347 austenitic stainless steel and A335low alloy steel, by the ERNICr-3 filler material provides the optimum qualities.