Design of Stainless Steel Welding Consumables for Cryogenic Service

Austenitic stainless steels are commonly used as structural materials for cryogenic temperature application. The components fabricated using welding require that the welds should have desirable properties at cryogenic temperatures. This necessitates' the selection of right type of electrodes to provide a weld metal with beneficial properties such as tensile strength and impact properties. The various factors which characterize the weld metal such as solidification mechanism, optimum control of delta ferrite, resistance to hot cracking, minimum inclusion content, type of coating, heat input and the addition of rare earths are discussed with a view to elucidating the effect of these m improving the weld metal pertormance.