Steel Welding: A Comprehensive Welder's Guide
Steel is one of the most commonly welded materials, with various types boasting excellent weldability and advantageous material properties. Despite this, not all types of steel are considered easily weldable, and several require unique techniques for reliable welds that don’t crack, break, or corrode. In this article, we’ll explore the weldability of various types of steels and common applications for steel welding.
Weldability By Steel Type
Carbon Steel Weldability
The weldability of carbon steel is based on the carbon content. Carbon steel with a low carbon content is much easier to weld than carbon steels with a high carbon content.
Low carbon steel (0.15% to 0.3% carbon content) has excellent weldability. It’s significantly less likely to crack, and therefore can be welded using any regular welding technique.
Medium carbon steel (0.3% to 0.6% carbon content) is less weldable. Welding technicians need to be mindful of hydrogen use during the welding process to prevent cracking.
High carbon steel (0.6% to 2.0% carbon content) has weak weldability. It is the most difficult carbon steel to weld without cracking. To prevent cracking, welding technicians usually pre-heat the metal gradually. Pre-heaters distribute the heat throughout the metal more evenly, helping the high carbon steel not crack under stress. Post-heating is also common for high carbon steel.
Common Applications for Steel Welding
Steel welding is an important part of construction in various industries. Steel welding is capable of creating durable, permanent bonds between metals, ensuring structural integrity of the components created by welding. Here are some of the common commercial applications where steel welding is consistently used:
Automotive Applications: Welding fuses different parts together to create thin components like vehicle frames or body panels, to more complex components like exhaust systems.
Construction Applications: Construction companies depend on steel welding to create strong and dependable infrastructure, including joining beams or columns to form architecture such as bridges or buildings.
Oil and Gas Applications: The oil and gas industry depends on reliable components for the safe transport of things like fuel and natural gas. It requires utmost accuracy to avoid deadly and costly malfunctions. Steel welding is used to join pipelines together, repair cracked pipelines, and create storage tanks.
Agricultural Applications: Steel welding is used to join together the components to make tractors, plows, and harvesters.
Ball Service Group: Certified Steel Welding Technicians
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Stainless Steel Weldability
Stainless steels use different types of alloys, and these alloys determine the overall weldability of the stainless steel. Stainless steels are highly prone to cracking, but still commonly used among welders for its material advantages, such as its corrosion resistance, recyclability, and visually-pleasing surface finish with little need for post-processing.
Austenitic stainless steel is made from a mixture of chromium and nickel. Although stress cracking is a risk, austenitic stainless steel has great weldability and is generally considered one of the easiest types to weld. As long as welding technicians are mindful of the welding challenges associated with austenitic stainless steel, cracking can easily be avoided.
Ferritic stainless steel is known for having a ferrite microstructure while being composed almost entirely of iron and chromium. It is significantly less costly than other forms of stainless steel due to its lack of nickel content. Additionally, it’s strikingly malleable and can be cold worked, meaning it does not require heating to be shaped. That being said, it has poorer weldability than austenitic stainless steel because of its vulnerability to corrosion and heat-affected zones. For this reason, this material is not typically utilized for structural welding. It loses toughness easily.
Martensitic stainless steel contains chromium and a low nickel content, but is separated from other stainless steels by its distinctly high carbon content. Being a common challenge with high carbon steels, welding technicians must be careful of hydrogen cracking when welding martensitic stainless steel. Overall, martensitic stainless steel is considered to have decent weldability, but must be welded using appropriate precautions. Like high carbon steels, it should be pre-heated and post-heated.
Duplex stainless steel has a unique two-phase ferritic-austenitic microstructure, composed mainly of chromium, but also low levels of molybdenum and nitrogen. It has great weldability, especially in contrast with ferritic stainless steel. Duplex stainless steel is tougher, more ductile, and corrosion resistant. Nevertheless, it does not surpass austenitic stainless steel in terms of weldability.