Abstract

Generally the factors affected largely by the cold cracking sensitivity of the weld are the quantity of the diffusible hydrogen, the brittleness and hardness of the bond area and the tensile restraint stress. These factors have relation each other, and if we can reduce one of these factors, it becomes instrumental to the root cracks prevention of weld. This study deals with the gravity type-underwater-welding of KR Grade A-3 marine steel plate using E4303 welding electrode in order to compare wet-underwater-welding with in-air- welding, resulting in obtaining the tensile restraint characteristics, the hardness distribution, the quantity of diffusible hydrogen and the macro- and micro-crack properties in both underwater and in-air welds. The main results obtained are as follows: 1) The quantity of diffusible hydrogen measured for 48 hours is about 18cc/100g-weld-metal for the in-air-weld of one pass and about 48cc/100g-weld-metal for the underwater-weld of one pass which is about 3 times penetration of diffusible hydrogen compairing with the case of the in-air-weld. However, it was experimentally confirmed that, by the multi-pass welding of 2 to 5 passes, the diffusible hydrogen in the underwater weld metal can be reduced as much as 27 to 49%. 2) The hardness of the weld metal indicates the highest value in the heat affected zones of underwater weld for more rapid cooling rate, resulting in the higher sensitivity of cold cracking. So, it is desirable to soften the higher hardness in the HAZ by tempering effect such as the multi-pass welding in the underwater welding. 3) At the bond vicinity of the underwater weld HAZ, micro cracks were found as resulted by both more rapid cooling rate and more diffusible hydrogen and also by the stress corrosion cracking under the tensile restraint stress in the underwater. But this could be prevented by the tempering effect of the following weld bead such as the multi-pass welding.

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