Optics & Laser Technology 74 (2015) 125131

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Optics & Laser Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optlastec

Heat treatment of welded joints of steel 0.31Cr1Si produced

by high-power ber lasers
S.V. Kuryntsev n, A.Kh. Gilmutdinov
Department of Laser Technologies, KNRTU-KAI, Kazan, Russian Federation

art ic l e i nf o
Article history:
Received 15 February 2015
Received in revised form
3 June 2015
Accepted 4 June 2015
Available online 11 June 2015
Keywords:
Medium carbon steel
Laser welding
Heat treatment
Mechanical properties
Microstructure

a b s t r a c t
The effect of heat treatment on the welded joints of steel grade 0.31Cr1Si produced by 30 kW power
ber lasers was investigated in the paper. The speed of the welding process was 20 mm/s. Heat treatment
was carried out on two levels, quenching with subsequent middle tempering and high tempering. The
samples were examined before and after heat treatment, macro- and microstructure were studied using
SEM, UTS, three points bent test, microhardness. The effect of heat treatment was signicant: it allowed
reduction of the weld hardness of considerably and enhancement of its ductility.
& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Currently, many studies have been devoted to processes of laser
welding of low-carbon and austenitic steels of large thickness [1,15].
This paper describes the experimental studies on welding and subsequent heat treatment of welded joints of medium carbon, lowalloy steel 0.31Cr1Si (chemical composition is presented in
Table 1). This steel is a widely used construction material, which is
well-quenched and has limited weldability [16,17]. The basic defects
in electric arc welding of these steels are hot and cold cracks, they
are formed as a result of polymorphic and phase transformations
(AusteniteMartensite, AusteniteFerriteCementite, Austenite
Bainite) [18,1621] due to the change of volume, at high speeds of
cooling after the thermal inuence of welding. To reduce the cooling
rate of the welded joint, pre-heating and related heating [22], postweld heat treatment [2329] are used, besides it is necessary to
prevent cooling of the welded joint to the room temperature. Considering the foregoing, it is obvious that the technology of electric
arc welding of these steels is rather complicated, as complex chemical, physical and thermodynamic processes of high-temperature
phases [17,19] take place in the weld joint and in the heat affected
zone. When welding steels of this class energy sources, ensuring
minimal overheating of molten metal and the HAZ should be used.
In the last decade, one of the most popular and advanced
welding processes is laser welding and its variations: original laser
n

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kuryntsev16@mail.ru (S.V. Kuryntsev).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2015.06.004
0030-3992/& 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

welding, hybrid laser-arc welding, laser welding with cold ller

material, dual beam laser welding, and defocused beam laser
welding [1,2,11,31]. Laser welding is used for welding of austenitic
steels of various classes [2,8], duplex [6,9], zinc-coated [10],
microalloyed [30] steels, and a large number of works is devoted
to hybrid welding with various technological methods for welding
of thick stock materials [4,810].
However, laser welding is characterized by higher weld cooling
rate [2], since the metal heating and melting by highly concentrated
source of energy. This feature, in most cases, [1,2,6,812], has positive
effect on the properties of the compounds-low HAZ, decrease or
absence of thermal deformations. But during welding of hardened
steels of perlitic and martensitic grades it naturally leads to formation
of hardening structures-martensite and bainite in the weld and HAZ
[1719,21,3436]. Formation of these structures may lead to increased
strength and brittleness and reduced ductility of the weld. To reduce
or neutralize this effect heat treatment of welded joints was carried
out on two regimes in the study, with quenching and subsequent
medium tempering (QMT) and high tempering (HT) Fig. 1. The aim of
this study is to investigate the effect of heat treatment carried out
according to standard regimens for this grade of steel on the weld
having abnormally high hardness for the steel grade.

2. Experiment
This paper describes the study of the effect of heat treatment
on the welded joints of steel 0.3S1Cr1Si (Table 1) obtained by

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S.V. Kuryntsev, A.Kh. Gilmutdinov / Optics & Laser Technology 74 (2015) 125131

Table 1
Chemical composition of specimen.
Composition

Si

Mn

Cr

Ni

Ti

As

Cu

Base metal

0.280.34

0.91.2

0.81.1

o 0.025

o 0.025

0.81.1

o 0.08

o 0.3

Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of heat treatment modes: QMT and HT.

Table 2
Modes of welding process.
Sample/welding parameters

P (kW)

Vweld (m/s)

1 NHT
2 QMT
3 HT

10
10
10

0.02
0.02
0.02

mechanical testing (bending, UTS) tensile machine Shimadzu AG5kNX was used, microhardness was measured by manual equipment
Remet HX 1000 with the load of 100 gr. Before bending test the
specimens were machined from the root and from the surface of the
weld to obtain defect-free surface. The tensile specimens were cut at
Buehler AbrasiMatic 300, the face and the root were not treated, tests
were conducted to identify the differences outside the standard.
It was assumed that after heat treatment carried out in two different modes it will be possible to identify the most effective mode of
thermal processing in terms of the spent time. And in general to
satisfy oneself of the applicability of classical approaches of material
science [17,18,20,21,3436] to the welded joints of steel 0.31Cr
1Si produced at high speeds using high energy sources [14,15,32].

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Visual control
Fig. 2 shows the appearance of the face and root sides of the
weld joint obtained under the above-mentioned modes. Since the
welding was performed in the lower spatial position, the weld has
a shrinkage on the front side and the root bead.
3.2. Macro-sections and ductility

The front side of the weld

The root side of the weld

Fig. 2. Appearance of the weld.

high-power ber lasers (30 kW) at high speeds (20 mm/s). Three
samples were welded, as for geometrical sizes the samples before
welding were 10 mm thick, 50 mm wide, and 200 mm long.
Welding works were performed on LS-30 of IPG-Photonics
(USA) device equipped with a robot KUKA KR 120 R 2700 extra HA,
welding head laser focusing head KUGLER GmbH, LK-690. The
wavelength of radiation is 1070 nm [13,15], focal length is 450 mm.
The defocusing distance of laser beam to the surface of work piece
is 0.0 mm, laser spot diameter in focus is 200 m. 99.99% Argon
was used as a shielding gas to protect the top part of molten pool,
ow rate of the shielding gas is 17 l/min. The process stability was
provided by the use of non-extreme modes of laser radiation up to
10 kW [14,15,32].
Welding modes are shown in Table 2. Heat treatment was performed after cooling of the welded joints until room temperature as
per the modes shown in Fig. 1, two electric ovens SNOL 7.2/1300
were used. The thermal processing was aimed at increase of plasticity [20], with maintaining high strength properties of the welded
joint having a martensite structure [2136] with hardness of 8500
9000 MPa. For studying the mechanical properties and microstructure, the samples were prepared from the welded blank No.1
(no heat treatment-NHT), No. 2 (quenchingmiddle temperingQMT), No. 3 (high tempering-HT). To investigate the microstructure
thin sections were prepared, 4% solution of nitric acid in alcohol was
applied as reagent. Photos of the microstructure were obtained on
SEM Carl Zeiss AURIGA CrossBeam (FIB-SEM) Zeiss NVision 40. For

Table 3 shows the results of three-point bending test and weld

macrostructure after etching by 4% solution of nitric acid in alcohol. Bending tests were carried out before destruction of the
sample, ductile fracture was observed only on the 2nd sample
(QMT), so in this case the tests were carried out before the rst
defect (crack). The maximum deformation was in sample 2 (QMT),
the minimum was in sample 1 (NHT). It also shows that after
etching the samples have a different appearance, it is due to a
change in local etched heat of the treated samples compared with
the state after welding. The photograph of the macrostructure of
the rst sample 1 (NHT) clearly shows HAZ (darker part) and the
weld (less dark part), the maximum HAZ in the center, it is connected with the lowest heat removal in this part.
3.3. Microstructure
Fig. 3 shows SEM photographs of the microstructure of the weld,
HAZ and base metal before and after heat treatment. Certainly
structure of the weld, the HAZ and base metal of samples QMT and
HT changed signicantly after heat treatment. Fig. 3 shows that the
microstructure of the weld joint, HAZ and the base metal of all the
samples have been modied after thermal treatment. NHT sample in
the weld has a structure of ne needled martensite without retained
austenite, HAZ of high bainite, base metal of perlite. QMT sample
has a homogenized microstructure presumably it is of sorbite structure. The microstructure of HT sample in the weld has a structure of
martensite, HAZ of troostite, base metal of ferrite perlite.
Fig. 4 shows pictures of the microstructure of the weld metal at
40,000 magnication before and after heat treatment. In the case
of NHT ne needled martensite without carbide is observed.
After the heat treatment under the QMT regime structure of
sorbite is observed, which has fairly large particles of carbides.
After thermal processing under HT regime (at 640 120 min)

Table 3
Photo of macrosections and samples after bend tests.
Heat treatment

Deformation (mm)

Strain (kN)

1314.2

9.810.5

QMT

2020.5

1717.9

HT

17.518

16.517

Samples after three-point bend test

S.V. Kuryntsev, A.Kh. Gilmutdinov / Optics & Laser Technology 74 (2015) 125131

NHT

Macrostructure

127

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S.V. Kuryntsev, A.Kh. Gilmutdinov / Optics & Laser Technology 74 (2015) 125131

NHT

QMT

HT

10 m

10 m

10 m

Fine needled martensite

Sorbite
Seam

Tempered martensite

High bainite

Sorbite
HAZ

Troostite

Perlite

Sorbite
Base metal

Ferrite perlite

Fig. 3. Photographs of the microstructure of various parts of the weld joint before and after heat treatment.

tempered martensite structure is observed, usually after quite long

exposure to the given temperature carbides are smaller in size, as
shown in Fig. 4 (HT).
3.4. Microhardness
Microhardness measurements were carried out in three areas:
on the top of the weld, in the middle and at the root part as shown
in Fig. 5, the results are presented in Fig. 6(a)(c). The measurements show that the microhardness of NHT weld sample corresponds to martensite, the HAZ hardness corresponds to martensite
and high bainite, and microhardness of base metal corresponds to
perlite in accordance with Fig. 2. Microhardness of the weld, HAZ

and base metal of QMT sample does not exceed 3500, which
corresponds to sorbite. Microhardness of the weld of HT sample is
within the range 30004300, which corresponds to tempered
martensite structure in the weld, troostite in the HAZ and ferrite
perlite in the base metal. The microhardness of the root part in all
cases is higher than the middle and the top, due to high cooling
rates, this fact should be considered when choosing the direction
of deformation of welded product.
3.5. Ultimate tensile strength and elongation
3 samples were prepared and tested for each mode (NHT, QMT,
and HT), the results of mechanical tests UTS and elongation are

S.V. Kuryntsev, A.Kh. Gilmutdinov / Optics & Laser Technology 74 (2015) 125131

129

NHT

QMT

Fig. 6. Microhardness of samples, cap, middle and root part of the weld. a NHT, b
QMT, c HT.

HT
Fig. 4. Pictures of the microstructure of the weld metal magnication 40,000.

Fig. 7. Mechanical properties of the weld joints before and after heat treatment.
Fig. 5. Schematic illustration of microhardness measurement areas.

shown in Fig. 7. It can be seen that the samples of NHT series have
the highest rates of UTS (100%) and elongation (100%), a series of
QMT samples have the rate of UTS (  0.14%) and elongation

( 19.7%), a series HT samples have the rate of UTS ( 10.5%) and

elongation ( 11.3%).
Fig. 8 shows samples from each series after UTS tests. It is
natural that destruction of the samples in NHT series happened on

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S.V. Kuryntsev, A.Kh. Gilmutdinov / Optics & Laser Technology 74 (2015) 125131

Sample

Photographs of the samples after the break

NHT

[2]

QMT

[3]

HT

[4]
[5]

Fig. 8. Photographs of the samples after the break.

[6]

the base metal, as the joint is very strong, a closer look shows that
the weld metal is not deformed by stretching samples of QMT and
HT series were deformed along the weld or the weld and HAZ.

[7]

4. Conclusions

[9]

- Welded joints produced by laser welding using high power

and high speed have high hardness and low ductility. Application
of heat treatment results in improvement of mechanical
properties.
- Mechanical properties of HT samples have higher elongation
( 18%) and acceptable tensile strength ( 623 MPa) compared to
QMT samples having elongation ( 16%), tensile strength (695 MPa).
However, QMT samples have the same tensile strength (695 MPa) as
NHT samples ( 696 MPa), but greater ductility at three point bending
of QMT (deformation is 2020.5 mm), of NHT (deformation is 13
14 mm). It should be noted that the processing mode for HT (120 min)
takes longer time and is more energy-consuming in comparison with
QMT mode (40 min).
- It is proved that abnormally high hardness of the weld can be
reduced by heat treatment in the entire volume of a workpiece
(workpiece thickness being 10 mm) according to standard modes
for this grade of steel. This result establishes that the developed
technology of welding and heat treatment can be used to produce
a defect-free weld with high strength and ductility.
- More thorough study is required to identify the structural
components of the welded joint, and to choose the heat treatment
modes in accordance with the desired performance characteristics.

[8]

[10]
[11]
[12]

[13]

[14]

[15]
[16]
[17]

[18]
[19]
[20]

[21]

[22]

Acknowledgments
The present research was conducted within project by the
resolution No. 220, Contract No. 14z50.31.0023 with nancial
support of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian
Federation.

[23]

[24]

[25]

[26]

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in
the online version at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optlastec.2015.06.
004.

[27]

[28]
[29]

[30]

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