STAINLESS-STEEL CLADDING OF STRUCTURAL-STEEL PLATE USING THE PULSED CURRENT GMAW PROCESS

Structural steel was clad with stainless steel using the pulsed curren t and conventional continuous current gas metal are welding (GMAW) pro cesses. Geometry, chemical composition, magnetic constituent (gamma delta) content and microstructure of the stainless steer cladding prod uced by both the processes were studied. With both processes, an inter active layer was formed in the cladding adjacent to its interface with the structural steel. Hardness in the cladding and interactive layer was also studied. The characteristics of the cladding and the hardness of the interactive layer as a result of using pulsed current GMAW wer e correlated to the pulse parameters, such as mean current, pulse freq uency and pulse duration. The characteristics of the pulsed current cl adding were also compared to those of the continuous current cladding. It was observed that pu I sed current GMAW stainless steel cladding o f structural steel is beneficial compared to continuous current GMAW d ue to thicker deposition, lower dilution and depth of fusion, higher h ardness of the cladding and lower hardness of the interactive layer. H owever, the characteristics of the cladding and interactive layer are found to be governed by the pulse parameters. The right selection of p ulse parameters may produce comparatively finer microstructure in the weld cladding, which along with the lower dilution, may be beneficial to the corrosion properties of the cladding.