Transvarestraint Testing of Low Ferrite Consumables for Austenitic Stainless Steel Welding

Two low ferrite filler wires and one autogenous weld were tried on 316L Stainless Steel sample plates, lor assessing the hot cracking susceptibility. The deposited welds were tested for ferrite number and the autogenously melted using TIG process on Transvarestraint testing unit. These samples were strained at two different levels. The hot cracking susceptibility was measured in terms of number of cracks, total length of cracks and maximum crack length at two different strains to the weld metal. It was found that the total crack length or number of cracks are indicative of cracking susceptibility. Interestingly, order of increasing susceptibility in the welded samples matched with the decreasing level of delta ferrite.