from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Weld microstructure depends on the characteristics of welded materials and parameters of welding technology, especially on the heat input that determines the peak temperature and the cooling rate. When the coated sheets are welded, the effect of the chemical composition of the coating must be also considered even though its thickness is only a few tens of microns. During 22MnB5+AlSi laser welding experiments, the ferrite-stabilizing elements of coating modified the weld metal microstructure. Ferrite appeared in a quenched weld metal. The rapid cooling rate accompanying welding with a focused beam limited the homogenization of the weld metal which resulted in the formation of ferritic bands in the regions rich in Si and especially in Al. On the other hand, a high level of homogenization was reached when welding with the defocused beam. The ferritic islands uniformly distributed in the weld metal were formed at 0.4 wt% and 1.6 wt% of Si and Al, respectively. The doubled heat input reduced the Al content to 0.7 wt% insufficient for the ferrite formation at still relatively high cooling rates. Predicting the distribution of ferrite in the weld metal is challenging due to its dependence on various factors, such as cooling rate and the volume of dissolved coating, which may vary with any modifications made to the welding parameters.
Keywords: Laser welding, high-strength steel, microstructure, heat input, ferrite stabilization© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.