Evaluation of cold crack susceptibility on HSLA steel welded joints

The present study addresses an evaluation of the effect of several welding parameters on cold cracking formation in welded joints of High Strength and Low Alloy steels, as well as the resulting microstructures and hardness values. The main parameters studied include the variation of the preheating temperature, drying time of the electrode, chemical composition and thickness of the base metal. The presence of cold cracking in the joints was analyzed from Tekken tests using steel plates made of SAR 80 T, 100 T and 120 T with of various thickness. The plates were welded by Shielded Metal Arc Welding either with or without pre-heating. Different preheating temperatures were studied, i.e., 375, 455 and 525 K. AWS E 12018 G and 11018 G electrodes were used under different conditions, i.e., not dried or dried up to 2, 3 and 4 h at 515 K. The results indicated the presence of cracks in the welded metals with the combination of hardness values above 230 HV and the formation of high contents of acicular ferrite (above 93 %) in the welds without preheating. Higher crack susceptibility was also observed in the thick welded metal plates.