Effects of activating flux on Inconel 718 alloy and AISI 304 stainless steel dissimilar TIG welds

The purpose of this work is to investigate the effects of activating flux on the penetration, depth-to-width ratio (DWR), angular distortion and hardness of Inconel 718 alloy and AISI 304 stainless steel (SS) dissimilar welds in the tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding process. In the activated TIG (A-TIG) process, the single component fluxes such as SiO2, NiO, MoO3 and MoS2 and the mixed component fluxes that using 50 % of each single component flux to create six new mixtures were used in the experiment. The experimental results showed that the A-TIG welds coated with 100% SiO2 flux was provided with best DWR of dissimilar welds. In addition, the experimental procedure of A-TIG welding process not only produced a significant increase in penetration and DWR of weld bead, but also improved the angular distortion and hardness of Inconel 718 alloy and AISI 304 SS dissimilar welds.