Modeling the Welding Process of the Low Alloy Ferritic Steels T/P23 and T/P24

Abstract

In this paper a model based on transport equations is proposed to study the weldability of low alloy ferritic steels T/P23 and T/P24. The model was numerically implemented by using the finite volume method (FVM) in an open source computational code to simulate the influence of the heat input, base metal thickness and preheating temperature on the thermal evolution and the cooling rate during the welding process. Meanwhile, it was possible to evaluate qualitatively the microstructure at the heat affected zone (HAZ) of these steels when a single weld bead was deposited on their surface and calculate the maximum hardness reached at this region. A double-ellipsoid heat source model for power density distribution was used in order to obtain a good estimate of the cooling rate and evolution of the fusion zone (FZ). The results are discussed and good agreement between experimental and simulated results was obtained for temperature distribution