A study on mechanical and microstructure characteristics of the STS304L butt joints using hybrid CO2 laser-gas metal arc welding

In order to examine mechanical characteristics of the stainless steel (STS304L) hybrid welded butt joints, two-dimensional thermal elasto-plastic analysis has been carried out. To this end, a 2D simulation model has been developed considering hybrid welding features. Based on thermal history data obtained from this heat source model, the residual stress distribution in weld metal (WM), heat affected zone (HAZ) and base metal (BM) characteristics have been calculated and found to be in reasonable agreement with the experimentally measured values. In order to investigate the effect of welding process, thermal elasto-plastic behaviour of the hybrid welded joints was compared with a welded joints obtained by conventional submerged arc welding (SAW) process. The results show that the longitudinal residual stress in the hybrid welded joints is less (13-15%) than that of the SA welded joints. Weld metal formed in both welding processes shows very fine dendritic structure. Due to higher heat input in SAW, the HAZ size of the SA welded joints is more than twice that of the hybrid welded joints. Therefore, from mechanical and metallurgical point of view, it could be confirmed that it makes a good sense to use SAW instead of hybrid CO2 laser-gas metal arc welding (GMAW) for butt joint of the STS304L thick steel. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.