Weld Solidification Cracking in 304 to 304L Stainless Steel

Abstract

A series of annulus welds were made between 304 and 304L stainless steel coaxial tubes using both pulsed laser beam welding (LBW) and pulsed gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). In this application, a change in process from pulsed LBW to pulsed gas tungsten arc welding was proposed to limit the possibility of weld solidification cracking since weldability diagrams developed for GTAW display a greater range of compositions that are not crack susceptible relative to those developed for pulsed LBW. Contrary to the predictions of the GTAW weldability diagram, cracking was found.This result was rationalized in terms of the more rapid solidification rate of the pulsed gas tungsten arc welds. In addition, for the pulsed LBW conditions, the material compositions were predicted to be, by themselves, “weldable” according to the pulsed LBW weldability diagram. However, the composition range along the tie line connecting the two compositions passed through the crack susceptible range. Microstructurally, the primary solidification mode (PSM) of the material processed with higher power LBW was determined to be austenite (A), while solidification mode of the materials processed with lower power LBW apparently exhibited a dual PSM of both austenite (A) and ferrite-austenite (FA) within the same weld. The materials processed by pulsed GTAW showed mostly primary austenite solidification, with some regions of either primary austenite-second phase ferrite (AF) solidification or primary ferrite-second phase austenite (FA) solidification. This work demonstrates that variations in crack susceptibility may be realized when welding different heats of “weldable” materials together, and that slight variations in processing can also contribute to crack susceptibility.