Fatigue behavior improvements of laser-induction hybrid welded S690QL steel plates

Abstract

In this paper, the improvements of fatigue performances of S690QL steel welded by laser-induction hybrid welding (LIHW) method were performed, mainly through the infrared imaging device to obtain the weld thermal cycle, fatigue machine to test the fatigue strength and scanning electron microscope to observe the fracture morphology. In fatigue tests, tension-tension fatigue loading and stress ratio R = 0.1 was selected. The LIHW fitted S-N curves were derived. It was found that the cracks with symmetrical grooves were initiated at the weld center (WC), while the single-laser welding (SLW) fatigue samples were fractured at the WC. However, the LIHW samples were finally fractured near heat-affected zone (HAZ). The fracture morphology of fatigue samples with stress amplitude of 108 MPa and 144 MPa were further selected to analysis. Due to different degree of defects or stress concentration, and different welding heat input absorption ability and cooling rate, in sudden fracture region, SLW fatigue samples mainly contained the brittle transient failure mode, LIHW fatigue samples mainly showed a ductile failure mode. It can thus be concluded that the LIHW method could improve the fatigue performance of S690QL steel joints.