Study on Temperature Influence on Lack of Fusion Formation in Spatter/Base Metal Interface

Abstract

In the development of modern welded structures with longer life-time and/or higher load-carrying ability, fatigue properties are becoming more and more important. A lot of researches have been done to investigate which factors can elongate the fatigue life of weldments. Cold lap defects, were found to be important initiation sites of the fatigue failure in 1990s. In the ISO standard, cold lap is referred to as a type of micro-lack of fusion. Previous study found that most of the cold laps in GMAW process are formed in spatters. In this paper the interface of spatter/base metal was cut, polished and investigated by conventional metallographic methods. The aim is to reveal the influence of temperature on cold lap formation. In the experiments, different pre-heating temperatures of the parent plate were used in tandem GMAW. Results showed linear empirical relationship between the temperature of the parent plate and the amount of lack of fusion in the spatter/base metal interface.