Effect of welding parameters on cruciform weld joints made of armor steel

It is aimed to examine the effect of welding parameters on cruciform welded joints. Armor steels are used in military applications such as tracked and wheeled armored vehicles. These steels are quenched and tempered steels and have high yield stress and hardness. Although the increase in carbon equivalent increases the ballistic level together with the hardness value, weldability decreases. Therefore, the welding parameters of these steels must be determined carefully. Before the welding, chemical analysis, macro examination, hardness test, tensile tests and ultrasonic examination were carried out to verify the material properties. After the verification tests, plates were welded with three different welding parameters to observe the changing of the mechanical properties. After the welding process, welded pieces were subjected to non-destructive tests to inspect the weld imperfections. After the inspection, welded specimens were subjected to hardness test, macro examination and tensile tests. In addition to these tests, weld penetration (WP) measurements were performed with a new assessment method. In this measurement method, unit of area takes into consideration instead of the unit of length. As a result, it is determined that with the increasing welding parameters although WP increase, hardness values in heat affected zone decrease.