The Variation of Profile of γ-Stainless Steel Weld Bead with a Change of Heat Input

Cladding is usually done to protect a surface from corrosive or erosive wearing. Better cladding demands optimum weld bead geometry that should have less penetration giving less dilution. Heat input plays a vital role to produce a weld bead profile characterized by its width, reinforcement and depth of penetration and some shape factors like RFF (reinforcement form factor) and PSF (penetration shape factor). In the present case, 316 austenitic stainless steel bead was produced on E250 low alloy steel by GMAW process using only carbon dioxide as the shielding gas. Nine bead-on-plate samples were produced with nine different heat inputs. Welding voltage was kept constant. Experiments were replicated twice for achieving more reliability. Experimental results showed that width, height and depth of weld bead got lager with larger heat input on the whole. On the contrary, shape factors like reinforcement form factor and penetration shape factor tend to become smaller with larger heat input. Linear regression analysis is carried out to evaluate the relation between heat input and different bead profile components as well as shape factors. ANOVA table suggests the equations proposed by regression analysis are explainable and significant at 95% significant level.