Development of Micro-plasma Arc Welding System for Different Thickness Dissimilar Austenitic Stainless Steels

With the miniaturization of the components, micro-fabrication has gained significant attention for the application in micro-devices. The current work aims to weld dissimilar austenitic stainless steels with different thickness (average ~ 700 µm) by downscaling the traditional arc-based joining proce...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of the Institution of Engineers (India) Series C Vol. 102; no. 3; pp. 657 - 671
Main Authors Dwibedi, Swagat, Bag, Swarup
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New Delhi Springer India 01.06.2021
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Aerospace Technology and Astronautics
Austenitic stainless steels
Chromium
Corrosion resistance
Depletion
Electron beam welding
Engineering
Finite element method
Industrial and Production Engineering
Laser beam welding
Mechanical Engineering
Miniaturization
Original Contribution
Plasma arc welding
Stainless steel
Thickness
Welded joints
Workpieces
Porosity
X-ray computed tomography
Microstructure
Tafel plot
Fracture mode
Inter-granular corrosion
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Summary:With the miniaturization of the components, micro-fabrication has gained significant attention for the application in micro-devices. The current work aims to weld dissimilar austenitic stainless steels with different thickness (average ~ 700 µm) by downscaling the traditional arc-based joining process. Micro-plasma arc welding (µ-PAW) with less than 15 A current is used to fabricate the weld joints at different heat input, which can be reviewed as a substitute for laser and electron beam welding process in terms of cost-effectiveness. The welding fixture employed to hold the small workpiece contributes significantly to achieve the complete establishment of the µ-PAW process. A low amount of heat input leads to reduced dendritic and secondary dendritic arm spacing, which increases the joint efficiency up to ~ 115%. A high value of heat input changes the mode of failure from ductile to mixed mode due to micro/macro-voids’ existence, decreases the corrosion resistance due to chromium depletion from 25 to 17 wt.%, and increases the number and size of the pores. A finite element-based computational model is also employed to presume the geometrical dimensions of the weld joint that agree well with the experimentally determined values with a maximum error of 9%.
ISSN:2250-0545
2250-0553
DOI:10.1007/s40032-021-00696-6