Fusion Welding Flashcards
Welding Definition
- Contacting surfaces - flaying surface - are coalesces by application of heat and/or pressure
- A filler material may be added
- The assemblage of parts that are joined are called a weldment
Welding Importance
- Provides permanet joint - parts become one
- Weld joint can be stronger than parent materials
- Economical way to join components in terms of material usage and fabrication costs
- Can join similar or dissimilar metals
- Not restricted to factory environment
Welding Limitations
- Manual process and expensive in terms of labour cost
- Dangerous because of high E involved
- Does not allow for convenient disassembly
- Welded joint can suffer from certain quality defects difficult to detect, which can reduce the strength of joint
The Weld Joint
- Junction of edges or surfaces of parts that have been joined by welding
- Two issues:
- Types of joints - applies to all joining and fastening methods
- Types of welds - used to join the pieces that form the joints
Weld Types
- Fillet - beside two workpieces
- Groove - between two workpieces
- Plug
- Slot
- Spot
- Seam
Fusion Welding
- Fusion is most common
- High density heat E must be supplied to the faying surfaces (resulting Ts cause localised melting of base metals (and filler if used))
- For metallurgical reasons, its desirable to melt the metal with min. E but high heat densities
Power Density
- E source with high power densities - such as laser beams or plasma arcs - can generate high Ts in a small area - which allows for repid melting and fusion of the metal
- This can result in faster welding speeds, which can increase productivity and reduce cost
Fusion Welding Spectrum
- There is a practical range of power density values in which welding can be done
- Too low - heat is conducted into workpiece and melting doesn’t occur
- Too high - metal vaporises in the affected region
PD ~10^3 melting metal <25s
PD ~10^6 vaporises metal in 10^-6 seconds
Fusion Zone
Mixture of filler metal and base metal together homogeneously as in casting - columnar grain grown
Welding Interface
aka. fusion line
A narrow boundary immediately solidified after melting
Heat Affected Zone (HAZ)
Below melting but substantial microstructural change even though the same chemical composition as base metal (heat treating - degradation in mechanical properties)
Unaffected Base Metal Zone (UBMZ)
High residual stress
Heat Affected Zone
- T below melting point, but high enough to cause microstructural change in the solid metal
- Chemical composition same as base metal, but region has been heat treated so that the properties and structure are altered
Effect on mechanical properties in HAZ is usually negative
Its here that welding failures occur
Welding Residual Stress
- Stress that exists in a weldment after all external loads are removed
Caused primarily by nonuniform heat flow during welding
Can lead to many defects - distortion and warping - Avoiding and minimising residual stress and distortion in weldments leads to increase in cost
Heat treatments improve dimensional stability and reduce susceptibility to cracking (e.g. hydrogen, fatigue cracking)
Controlling distortion may require expensive tooling and fixturing and possible post-weld maching
Types of FW
- Arc Welding (AW) - consumable and non-consumable electrod
- Resistance welding (RW) - resistance spot welding (RSW)
- Oxyfuel gas welding (OGW)
- Electron-beam welding (EBW)
- Laser-beam Welding (LBW)
Classification of Fusion Welding by Filler Material
(filler material added to facilitate joining and provide bulk and strength to joint)
- Autogenous weld when no filler is added
- Homogenous weld filler = parent material
- Hetrogenous weld filler is different to parent material