Experimental study on variations in charpy impact energies of low carbon steel, depending on welding and specimen cutting method

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study that examines variations of Charpy impact energy of a welded steel plate, depending upon the welding method and the method for obtaining the Charpy specimens. Flux cored arc welding (FCAW) and Gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) were employed to weld an SA516 Gr. 70 steel plate. The methods of wire cutting and water-jet cutting were adopted to take samples from the welded plate. The samples were machined according to the recommendations of ASTM SEC. II SA370, in order to fit the specimen dimension that the Charpy impact test requires. An X-ray diffraction (XRD) method was used to measure the as-weld residual stress and its redistribution after the samples were cut. The Charpy impact energy of specimens was considerably dependent on the cutting methods and locations in the welded plate where the specimens were taken. The specimens that were cut by water jet followed by FCAW have the greatest resistance-to-fracture (Charpy impact energy). Regardless of which welding method was used, redistributed transverse residual stress becomes compressive when the specimens are prepared using water-jet cutting. Meanwhile, redistributed transverse residual stress becomes tensile when the specimens are prepared using wire cutting.