Physical simulation-based analysis of multipass welding in S500 shipbuilding steel

Abstract Novel generations of shipbuilding steels have outstanding toughness due to the improved steel producing processes. Their microstructure mainly consists of ferrite and bainite, whilst the presence of acicular ferrite has a role in high impact energy of the welded joint. This research aims to analyze the effect of multipass welding on weld characteristics of S500 shipbuilding steel. A Gleeble 3500 simulator machine is used to produce the welding thermal cycles by the Rykalin-3D model on 70 x 10 x 10 mm samples manufactured in transversal direction from a submerged arc welded joint of 16 mm plate. For the simulation of the coarse-grained zone forming in the weld metal (CGHAZ-W) 1350°C and for the intercritical zone (ICHAZ-W) 815°C were selected, while the combination of these peak temperatures was applied for the intercritically reheated coarse-grained zone (ICCGHAZ-W). The examined t8/5 interval was 5…30 s. The weld properties were examined by microstructural examination, hardness test, and instrumented Charpy V-notch impact toughness test. The impact energy values of subzones were below the unaffected weld metal. Longer cooling time resulted in lower impact energy in ICHAZ-W. However, this tendency was not observed in CGHAZ-W. ICHAZ-W and ICCGHAZ-W resulted the lowest impact toughness, which was indicated by the large instable crack propagation.