• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.227-229
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• 2003

Low heat input welding methods have been investigated in order to minimize the HAZ softening of the 600MPa grade fine grained steel weldment. The welding processes of interest were a high speed FCA welding with a multi-torch welding system, laser welding with filler feeding and hybrid laser welding. No HAZ softening was found for all the weldments formed with low heat input less than 10kJ/cm. Tensile strength of the weldments was high enough to satisfy the required value. Impact toughness of the weldments was also good even at -20$^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.64-64
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• 2009

The use of ultra high strength steels (UTSS) is a natural result with increasing the demands for the lightweight materials and developing an innovative steel technology. Recently it has been used a 1500MPa grade hot stamping steel as automobile bodies, reinforcement parts, and seat frame parts in the automotive industry. It is a quenchenable steel manufactured by hot stamping process. It is well known that UTSS welding has softening in the heat affected zone(HAZ). Because welding is a sort of process applying heat, it should change the heat treated features and degrade the strength. This study was performed to investigate the influence of the heat input on the softening of the HAZ in the GMAW process. Each experiment was compared with that in the conditions having a different current and voltage at a same heat input. In order to analysis characteristics of the HAZ, optical microscope was used to observe microstructure and vickers hardness tests were carried out across the welds. Applying low heat input means a fast cooling rate. It leads to high hardness in the HAZ. It is found that characteristics of the HAZ are determined by microstructure obtained by different cooling rate.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.92-100
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• 1997

Weld repair of ASTM A-470 class 8 high pressure (HP) steam turbine rotor steel has been performed to extend the service life of older fossil units. Microhardness measurements were conducted across the weldment from unaffected base metal (BM) to weld metal (WM). The hardness of the BM was VHN 253, however it dropped up to VHN 227 at the heat affected zone (HAZ) close to unaffected BM for multipass SAW. This area of hardness drop is called "siftening zone" and has a width of 0.5-0.6mm. During creep rupture test, failure occurred around the softening zone and rupture time was 772.4hr at 19Ksi (132 Mpa) and 593.deg. C. Multipass MIG and TIG welding have been employed to reduce the softening zone width. The softening zone width for MIG was 0.3-0.4mm and for TIG was zero-0.4mm depending on heat inputs. However creep rupture time was decreased as softening zone width reduced. Creep rupture time also showed a close relationship with heat inputs in TIG process. The higher heat input, the longer rupture time. Most failure occurred at intercritical HAZ (ICHAZ), however rupture location was shifted to coarse grained HAZ (CGHAZ) as heat input decreased. The rupture surface showed tearing and dimple which indicated transgranular fracture. fracture.

• Proceedings of the KWS Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.274-276
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• 2006

Weldability of high Cr ferritic steel for $620^{\circ}C$ grade turbin casing were investigated. The effect of carbon content on the cold and hot cracking susceptibility and HAZ softening was determined. The cast steel with higher carbon content showed higher HAZ hardness because of the dissolution of cabonitrides during welding thermal cycle. Moreover, it showed higher solidification cracking sensitivity because of the little S-ferrite formation in weld metal. Both steels showed HAZ softening at $900^{\circ}C$ peak temperature after PWHT.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.27-35
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• 2015

Laser welding sector in the automotive industry has been widely recognized as one of the most important bonding processes, such as parts welding. Efforts to improve productivity and weld quality have been progressing steadily. In addition, laser welding is suitable for welding process that can produce high-quality welds suitable for flexible production and small quantity batch productions. In order to ensure the rigidity of the material, high strength material are applied to more than 1 GPa class body parts and automotive bumper beams. However, not only the situation is that the trend of domestic research, but also development is based on product molding considering freedom of shape where reinforcement is applied to meet the safety regulations and high-speed crash performance, despite the use of high strength materials. The tendency for heat-affected zone (HAZ) softening phenomenon common in areas of laser welded high tensile steel welding confirmed the occurrence of weld softening effect according to the process parameters. Based on this, range of process parameters could be selected for ensuring weld quality.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.54-61
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• 1984

Construction of welding structure is greatly dependent upon welding heat cycle. Fracture toughness is decreased remarkablely due to coarse grained HAZ and inequal residual stress of three dimensions to originate in welding. Post weld heat treatment(PWHT) is carried out to increase the fracture toughness of HAZ and to remove the residual stress. There occur some problem such as toughness decrement and stress relief cracking(SRC) in the coarse grained HAZ subject to the effect of tempering treatment. Therefore, in this paper, the effect of heat inputs affecting cooling rate and PWHT under the no stress on fracture toughness were evaluated by crack opening displacement (COD), SEM and micro-hardness test. Experimental results are as follows; 1. Fracture toughness of weld HAZ is dependent upon weld heat cycle and it is decreased with increment of heat input, but the degree of improvement of fracture toughness after PWHT was linearly increased with heat input. 2. Hardness of the parent metal is not changed, but the softening of coarse grained HAZ is remarkable due to PWHT. 3. Fracture surface of as-weld show the perfect brittle fracture with the cleavage fracture, but after PWHT they appear the ductile fracture surface with dimple.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.39-47
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• 1997

Recently developed TMCP steels, which were manufactured by controlled rolling followed by accelerated cooling process, were examined to study their characteristics and weldability. Accelerated cooling type TMCP steel's hardness test result exhibited high value on weld zone. On the contrary, base metal and HAZ exhibited comparatively the similar value. On this experiment result Softening of HAZ is not occurred. in the-heat affected zone, grain size repression be caused by chemical composition properties which a small quantity Al-Ti-B-N. Changing stress ratio near-threshold fatigue crack propagation experiments were carried out. According to this result, crack propagation velocity of the HAZ exhibited slower than the base metal and near-threshold value had increased at the HAZ. Finally accelerated cooling type TMCP steels were exhibited excellent mechanical properties in both strength and toughness.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.97-103
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• 1984

Post weld heat treatment(PWHT) of weldment of the low alloy steel is carried out to remove residual stress existing in weldment and to improve fracture toughness, but it is often observed that there occurs grain boundary failure and that fracture toughness decreases in weld heat affected zone(HAZ)because of PWHT. In this paper, the effect of heating rate and holding time of PWHT on fracture toughness were evaluated by crack opening displacement (CDD)test and micro-hardness test under the constant stress simulated residual stress in HAZ of Cr-Mo steel. The experimental results are as follow; (1)Transition temperature of weld HAZ after PWHT was dependent upon heating rate greater than holding time, and fracture toughness was decreased with an increase of the heating rate. (2)Softening ration of the notch tip was increased with holding time within one hour and saturated after one hour, but under applied stress it was increasing continuously. (3)The average hardness value in weld HAZ was increased with heating rate of PWHT.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.35-43
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• 1998

In this paper, the fracture toughness evaluation of the various microstructures such as HAZ, F.L and W.M in weldment of TMCP steel which has the softening zone owing to high heat input welding was carried out by using of the small punch(SP) test. In addition, the fracture toughness with the specimen orientation of rolled TMCP steel was investigated by means of SP test and the crack opening displacement (COD) test and then was compared with that of conventional SM50YB steel. From the results of SP test for TMCP steel, it could be seen that the SP energy transition curves of three different orientation were shifted to higher temperature side in order of S, T and L. But the {TEX}$DBTT_{SP}${/TEX} of each orientation specimen did not show a lot of differences and were quite lower than those of conventional SM50YB steel. The mechanical properties of HAZ structure in weldment of TMCP steel such as hardness, SP energy at room temperature and -196$^{\circ}C$ and the upper shelf energy of SP energy transition curve were lower than those of base metal due to softening. The {TEX}$DBTT_{SP}${/TEX} of each microstructure in weldment of TMCP steel increased in order of HAZ, F.L and W.M against base metal, but all microstructures showed a quite lower {TEX}$DBTT_{SP}${/TEX} than those of SM50YB steel.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.212-219
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• 2001

The fatigue test was carried out to evaluate the fatigue characteristics of fire resistance steel for frame structure and heat affected zone (HAZ) by the one side Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW). In this paper, the fatigue crack growth behavior was investigated with the compact tension specimen of base metal and the HAZ according to chemical composition and rolling end temperature, respectively. And the acoustic emission signals obtained from the fatigue test were analyzed by the time-frequency analysis method as a nondestructive evaluation. Main results obtained are summarized as follows; The hardness was appeared softening phenomenon that weld metal and HAZ are lower than that of base metal. Fatigue life of welded specimen was longer than that of base metal. m was 3~4.5 in base metal and 3.8~5.8 in HAZ. The main frequency range of acoustic emission signal analyzed from time-frequency method is different with the range by noise and crack. Also, it could be classified that it was also generated by fracture mechanics of dimple, inclusion etc.