Abstract
The effect of welding processes on fatigue crack growth behaviour of load carrying cruciform joints has been analysed. Cruciform joints were fabricated from pressure vessel grade (ASTM 517 ‘F’ grade) steel using shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) and flux cored arc welding (FCAW) processes. Fatigue crack growth experiments were carried out in a mechanical resonance vertical pulsator (SCHENCK 200 kN capacity) with a frequency of 30 Hz under constant amplitude loading ( R=0). It was found that the toe crack growth rates were relatively lower in the joints fabricated by SMAW process than the joints fabricated by FCAW process. The heat affected zone (HAZ) region of SMAW joints contains a low carbon martensitic structure and exhibited better fatigue resistance compared to the bainitic HAZ microstructure of FCAW joints. Relatively higher heat input involved in FCAW process resulted in the above variation in HAZ microstructure and led to inferior fatigue performance of FCAW joints compared to SMAW joints.
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