Vol. 135 (2019) ACTA PHYSICA POLONICA A No.

Proceedings of XIX International Scientific Conference “New Technologies and Achievements in Metallurgy,
Material Engineering, Production Engineering and Physics”, Częstochowa, Poland, June 7–8, 2018

The Effect of Welding Methods on the Corrosion Resistance

of 304 Stainless Steel Joints
M. Gucwaa,∗ , J. Winczeka , K. Gizab , P. Wieczorekb and K. Maklesa
a
Częstochowa University of Technology, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science,
Institute of Mechanical Technologies
b
Częstochowa University of Technology, Faculty of Production Engineering and Materials Technology,
Institute of Materials Engineering
This paper describes the study of corrosion resistance of 304 stainless steel joint welded with different heat
input in the material. The welding was done with classic methods and their low energy varieties. The structure
and properties of austenitic steels joints strongly depend on the level of heat input in the material. Electrochemical
corrosion resistance tests were carried out in 5% NaCl solution. The obtained results show the decrease of corrosion
resistance of tested joints in comparison to the base material.
DOI: 10.12693/APhysPolA.135.232
PACS/topics: welding, stainless steel, structure, corrosion

1. Introduction ergy input during welding. The low energy course of

the welding process also results in the use of a short arc
Stainless steels are an important group of engineering to make the joint using a small diameter welding wire
materials that are widely used in a variety of industries (about 1–1.2 mm). Due to the smaller amount of heat
and environments due to good mechanical properties and supplied to the joint, these methods seem to be attrac-
corrosion resistance. Austenitic stainless steels, due to tive also in the case of combining stainless steels, and
excellent properties such as corrosion resistance, duc- in particular steel with austenitic structure. Reducing
tility, toughness, and weldability, represent the largest the amount of heat brought to the joint should have a
general groups of stainless steels, which are produced in positive effect on the structure, limiting the size of the
higher tonnages than any other groups. The gas metal heat zone and structural changes such as the amount of
arc welding (GMAW) method, which is the most popular δ ferrite, sigma phase or chromium carbides responsible
arc welding process by reason of a wide range of applica- for corrosion [3, 4]. The important factor of the qual-
tions, is not without drawbacks. A large amount of heat ity of the joints is the filler materials for example type
input to the material adversely affects the properties of 316L gives the needle-shaped structure of acicular ferrite
the welded joint and is problematic in welding thin-walled that improve tensile properties in weld metal (WM) [5].
elements (thickness < 2 mm) because of thermal defor- A structure and chemical composition of WM is the key
mation. Another issue related to welding is aesthetics part of the whole joint and its corrosion resistance, de-
— spatter contamination adjacent to the joint surfaces pending on the method of welding and materials combi-
require removal, which is labor-intensive, affects the ef- nation [6, 7].
ficiency and complicates the technological processes ac- The main purpose of this work was to examine the in-
companying the production. Spatter is accompanied by fluence on corrosion resistance of the low energy method
emissions of gases and dust that negatively affect the of welding as Speed Cold and Speed Root and compare
working environment. In addition, welding of dissimi- them with the classical GMAW method.
lar metal joints and joining elements coated with metal-
lic coatings were a big problem. As a result of inten- 2. Methods
sive research, each of the significant producers of welding
sources proposed its alternative version of the GMAW Stainless steel grade 304 (X5CrNi18-10) with
method, with low heat input, low spatter and controlled austenitic structure was selected for welding tests.
short circuit transfer [1, 2]. This is how cold metal trans- All steel plates with dimensions 300 × 150 × 2 mm3 were
fer (CMT) was created by Fronius, ColdArc® by EWM, prepared for welding butt joint in flat position. The
surface tension transfer (STT) — Lincoln Electric, Speed welding source was LORCH S-XT with possibility of
Cold and Speed Root by Lorch. The common denomi- setting different mode of welding as marked P33 (Puls),
nator for all these methods is to reduce the total en- P39 (Synergic), P223 (Speed Cold) and P214 (Speed
Root). For making joints, a solid wire LNM 316LSi
(Lincoln Electric) with a diameter of 1 mm was used
for each welding method. Each time, the gas shield was
∗ corresponding author a gas mixture (97.5% Ar + 2.5% CO2 ). The welding

(232)
 The Effect of Welding Methods on the Corrosion Resistance of 304 Stainless Steel Joints 233

parameters are shown in Table I. After the welding of

the samples, individual fragments were cut out with the
division into joint zones: WM, heat affected zone (HAZ)
with base metal and the entire joint across the base
material, HAZ, and the weld. Water cutting type was
used due to the avoidance of heating the material which
is connected with the possible change of the structure of
individual joint zones. The device used for the cutting
process is a KIMLA machine of the StreamCut 3116
type. The prepared samples were tested with optical
microscope Olympus GX51. Electrochemical tests were
carried out in a 5% NaCl solution (solution in contact
with air) at the temperature of 25 ◦C by means of an
electrochemical measuring station (CH Instruments
1140A USA) controlled by a computer. As an auxiliary
electrode, a platinum electrode was used in the form
of a spiral, and as a reference electrode — a saturated Fig. 1. Structure of base metal, steel grade 304.
calomel electrode (SCE). Before each measurement, the
samples were grounded on aqueous abrasive papers with
finer and smaller grains (up to 1200), and then rinsed
with distilled water. Electrochemical measurements
used to assess the susceptibility of the tested areas
of welded joints to galvanic corrosion were performed
by recording the open circuit potential (OCP) values
against SCE. In order to estimate the corrosion rate
of the tested materials, the polarization curves in the
anodic direction were recorded at the scanning rate of
the potential of 1 mV/s, assuming an initial value of the
potential of about 200 mV lower than OCP. Polarization
curves were recorded under identical initial conditions
after 60 min from the moment the sample was immersed
in the working solution. Three replicates were made for
each electrode. The most representative measurement
was selected.

TABLE I
The welding parameters.

Welding Welding Welding Heat

Sample Welding
speed current voltage input
no. programme
[mm/s] [A] [V] [kJ/mm]
1 P33 5 76 19.1 0.29 Fig. 2. The structure of fusion line and heat affected
2 P39 7.5 134 19.3 0.34 zone.
3 P223 7.5 135 21.0 0.38
4 P214 7.5 128 21 0.27
amount in the structure increased. Generally, in all sam-
5 P39 7.5 149 21.1 0.42
ples δ-ferrite is classified into lathy and vermicular shape
which is caused by heat input. The ferrite from fusion
line is transformed in the line shape precipitations in the
3. Results and discussion heat affected zone in parallel to rolling direction. For the
lower heat inputs this character of the ferrite precipita-
The structure of base metal was austenite with small tion is observed on the smaller distance from the fusion
amount of δ-ferrite (Fig. 1). It was observed that there line. The weld metal in all the samples was skeletal mor-
was rising content of the δ-ferrite in the structure of phology of ferrite in matrix of austenite (Fig. 3). Fer-
HAZ in every sample in comparison to the base metal. rite was precipitated in the interdendritic area and was
The structure in fusion line were austenite with vermic- classified as in the fusion area. It was found that with
ular and lathy ferrite. There were significant changes in the increasing heat input the proportion of the vermicu-
the morphology of the fusion area depending on the heat lar and lathy ferrite changes. Samples welded with lower
input (Fig. 2). With the increasing heat input ferrite heat input were rich in vermicular ferrite opposite to sam-
234 M. Gucwa, J. Winczek, K. Giza, P. Wieczorek, K. Makles

for base metal was almost on the same level as for the
whole investigated weld metals. There is one exception
in sample No. 2 in which the value of current density was
significantly higher but still low (Table II). The current
density of the heat affected zones and base metal were
higher in comparison to the base metal and sample No. 2
had the highest value, too (Table III). The similar current
density in all investigated regions suggest low segregation
of element which improves corrosion resistance. If the
chromium content is higher in δ-ferrite than in austenite
phase, the corrosion resistance is improved [8]. However,
the presence of δ-ferrite with higher chromium content
may have detrimental effect on the corrosion resistance
due to the potential difference between the δ-ferrite and
austenite phases [9]. The base metal has higher corro-
sion potential than the welded metal and heat affected
zone for all samples. In this situation, when the joint
is placed in the electrolyte, the welded metal is anodic
of the galvanic couple between base metals and welded
metals. Since the heat affected zones have a little bet-
ter corrosion potential, near the base metal, the welds
are more sensitive to corrosion (Fig. 4). There was no
significant difference in the corrosion potential in the re-
searched samples but samples No. 3 which was welded
Fig. 3. Structure of weld metal for all samples. with low energy method was characterized by the most
favorable corrosion parameters.
ples within the amount of vermicular ferrite decreased
for higher portion of lathy ferrite. The lower heat input TABLE II
caused relatively higher thermal gradients in the weld Electrochemical corrosion parameters for WM compared
metal. There was reason of the finer ferrite dendrite size to base metal (BM).
and bigger spacing between dendrites. The higher heat
BM WM 1 WM 2 WM 3 WM 4 WM 5
input resulted in slower cooling and longer time available
Icorr [A/cm2 ] 0.0011 0.0016 0.0024 0.0015 0.0013 0.0013
for the dendrites to grow.
Ecorr [V] −0.10 −0.34 −0.35 −0.34 −0.32 −0.32
The creation of passive film is one of the main proper-
ties of stainless steels. The problem is that the structural
and chemical composition heterogeneity during weld TABLE III
metal solidification may significantly change the quality Electrochemical corrosion parameters for HAZ compared
of the passive film and then the corrosion behavior of the to BM.
welded metal. According to Fig. 4, the current density
HAZ 1 HAZ 2 HAZ 3 HAZ 4 HAZ 5
BM
+ BM + BM + BM + BM + BM
Icorr [A/cm2 ] 0.0011 0.00032 0.00069 0.00022 0.00041 0.00037
Ecorr [V] −0.10 −0.27 −0.28 −0.25 −0.26 −0.26

4. Summary

1. There were no significant differences in the corro-

sion resistance, in researched condition, for investi-
gated welding methods. The low energy method as
Speed Cold (sample No. 3) has the advantageous
parameters of corrosion resistance, but differences
with the rest method are subtle. There is not sig-
nificant advantage in using low energy methods and
corrosion resistance.
2. The morphology of the δ-ferrite in welds metal
were in the lathy and vermicular form. The big-
ger heat input caused in increasing content of the
Fig. 4. Potentiodynamic polarization curves of the
BM, HAZ, and VM in NaCl solution at 25 ◦C.
lathy shape ferrite and bigger dendrite size.
 The Effect of Welding Methods on the Corrosion Resistance of 304 Stainless Steel Joints 235

3. Due to the fact that the welds were the most sensi- [4] R. Mohammed, G.M. Reddy, K.S. Rao, Def. Technol.
tive to corrosion in the whole joints it is preferable 11, 237 (2015).
to choose the filler metal that has the corrosion po- [5] M. Shojaati, B. Beidokthi, Construct. Build. Mater.
tential to the base metal. 147, 608 (2017).
[6] R. Unnikrishnan, K.S.N. Satish Idury, T.P. Ismail,
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