Stainless Layout:Layout 1 2/10/09 2:43 PM
STAINLESS
Q&A
Q: We are making 1-in.-thick butt joints
between 304L stainless steel and ASTM
A516-70 carbon steel, using submerged
arc welding with ER309L electrode. We
use a single U-groove with a 1⁄4-in. root ra-
dius, 1⁄8-in. land, no root opening, and
20-deg included angle. Then we back-
gouge and finish the joint with FCAW or
SMAW. We have a lot of trouble with cen-
terline cracking in the SAW root pass, un-
less we substitute SMAW with 309L filler
metal for the root pass. What can we do to
make SAW root passes successfully?
A: The root cause of your root cracking
problem is dilution from the carbon steel
side causing the root pass to solidify as pri-
mary austenite, instead of the desired pri-
mary ferrite. The root pass cracks during
solidification and it ends up with virtually
zero ferrite content. Shielded metal arc
welding gets around this problem by re-
duced dilution as compared to SAW, but
its productivity is low.
One way to combat this is by using
DCEN polarity for SAW at low wire feed
speed (low current) to reduce dilution to
levels comparable to those obtained with
SMAW. But that is a relatively low produc-
tivity approach also, and the DCEN root
pass bead shape is often not desirable.
A more robust (forgiving) approach is
to design the joint to get away from sym-
metry. The problem with high dilution in
a symmetrical joint, such as a single U-
groove, is that the dilution comes approx-
imately equally from the two base metals.
It is dilution from the carbon steel side
that is responsible for loss of ferrite in the
weld metal. Dilution from the 304L side of
the joint has a more-or-less negligible ef-
fect on root pass ferrite content (or solid-
ification mode). That is because common
stainless steels like 304L, 316L, 317L, 321,
and 347 are generally designed by the
steelmaker to solidify as primary ferrite,
just like common stainless steel weld met-
als like 308L or 309L. This helps them to
get a higher yield from hot working of the
steel. You can easily establish this for
yourself by simply making a GTAW bead-
on-plate weld without filler metal on one
of these base metals — you will almost cer-
tainly find a magnetic response in the weld
indicating presence of ferrite, even if the
base metal is completely nonmagnetic be-
fore welding.
The approach I suggest is to make the
joint preparation asymmetrical so that
more of the dilution comes from the 304L
side of the joint than from the carbon steel
side of the joint. This can be done simply
by, for example, changing from a single U-
20 MARCH 2009
Page 20
BY DAMIAN J. KOTECKI
Fig. 1 — Alternate joint preparations for carbon steel to 304L with ER309L filler metal.
groove joint preparation to a compound
joint preparation consisting of a single J
preparation on the 304L and a single bevel
preparation on the A516-70, so that the
SAW arc will impinge mostly on the 304L.
A second possibility is to insert a 304L
stainless steel backing bar into the joint, so
that, again, the arc will impinge mostly on
the 304L, although in this case it is the
backing bar. These two alternatives, as
compared to your symmetrical joint
preparation, are sketched in Fig. 1. Figure
1A is your symmetrical joint preparation,
while Fig. 1B and C are asymmetrical joint
preparations as outlined above.
In welding either the joint preparation
of Fig. 1B or that of Fig. 1C, you should
still align the electrode along the joint
preparation centerline, not along the
304L/A516-70 interface. Then the weld
bead will wash up onto the carbon steel
without a lot of penetration into it. Most
of the arc energy will be spent melting
304L base metal (possibly including the
backing bar should you choose to use that)
and ER309L electrode. Because the joint
preparation is asymmetrical, you should
find that you will have to backgouge a bit
deeper in order to reach sound metal, but
that is preferable to cutting out a root pass
with a centerline crack as you have been
experiencing with the symmetrical single
U-groove joint preparation. In fact, this
will be evidence that you have achieved
lower dilution from the carbon steel.
After a successful root pass, the arc im-
pinges mainly on previously deposited
weld metal that contains ferrite, and the
low dilution effect from the carbon steel
side continues until joint completion.
Once you get the idea of the way this
asymmetrical joint preparation works, I
am sure that you can come up with a num-
ber of variants on the approach to suit
other situations. For example, the backing
bar need not be inserted into the root for
a single-side joint preparation — a 304L
backing bar wider than the root opening
could be used underneath the joint prepa-
ration with the same effect. In that case,
backgouging to remove the backing bar
would only have to remove the backing bar
and very little of the joint, so that only a
very shallow backside weld, if any, would
be needed to complete the joint to full
penetration.
This approach is not restricted to SAW.
It can be used to improve solidification
cracking resistance in any situation in
which a stainless steel expected to provide
a bit of ferrite (316L, for example) is to be
joined to carbon steel or even to a stain-
less steel in which no ferrite would be ex-
pected (310 or 320, for example).◆
DAMIAN J. KOTECKI is president,
Damian Kotecki Welding Consultants, Inc.
He is a past president of the American Weld-
ing Society, currently treasurer and a past
vice president of the International Institute
of Welding, and a member of the AWS A5D
Subcommittee on Stainless Steel Filler Met-
als, and the AWS D1K Subcommittee on
Stainless Steel Structural Welding. He is a
member and past chair of the Welding Re-
search Council Subcommittee on Welding
Stainless Steels and Nickel-Base Alloys. E-
mail your questions to Dr. Kotecki at
damian@damiankotecki.com, or send to
Damian Kotecki, c/o Welding Journal, 550
NW LeJeune Rd., Miami, FL 33126.