Effect of activated fluxes during welding of dissimilar stainless steels using semi-automatic setup

ABSTRACT

In the present work, two dissimilar metals austenitic AISI 304 and 316 stainless steels were welded with duplex 2205 using semi-automatic bi-directional GMAW setup to appraise the microstructural and mechanical behavior of the welded joints. Three different activated fluxes i.e. SiO₂, TiO₂ and CrO₃ were used to enhance the depth of penetration during joining of different stainless steels grades. Various process parameters such as welding current, voltage, filler wire, gas flow rate and activated flux were varied to observe their influences on joint tensile, bending strength, microhardness and microstructural properties. The experiments were designed using mixed level L18 orthogonal array of Taguchi method. Tensile strength was observed to be considerably dependent on the low gas flow rate, whereas welding current and activated flux influenced the toughness. The most significant effect on the bending strength and toughness was experienced with the use of SiO₂ activated flux.

KEYWORDS:

• Semiautomatic
• GMAW
• welding
• stainless
• steel
• dissimilar
• activated
• flux
• tensile
• bending
• microhardness
• SEM

Acknowledgments

We convey sincere thanks to Dr. Anirban Bhattacharya, Assistant Professor, IIT Patna, India, for his help.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

No specific grant or any funding from any agency in the public, private, commercial or not-for-profit sectors was received for this research.