Study about the Air Streams Influence Over the Weld Performance by Welding Processes SMAW, FCAW and FCAW-S)

Abstract

Welding is often performed in the field in the structures construction such as, for example, in shipyards. The use of welding processes has many problems due to the necessity of the protection around the area being welded from the weather conditions, such as winds and humidity. Winds are one of the main problems in this type of application, which are known to cause defects in the weld bead. In the present work, three welding processes were tested to check their resistance over the wind currents: SMAW (Shielded Metal Arc Welding), FCAW (Flux Cored Arc Welding) and FCAW-S (Flux Cored Arc Welding Self Shielding). The SMAW electrode used was AWS E7018, a basic type and the most used in shipyards. The FCAW electrode used was AWS E71T-1 due to its large use in the shipbuilding industry. The FCAW-S was chosen because of the promise of high resistance over the wind currents. The proposed methodology was based on the determination of the maximum wind speed that each process could withstand without internal or external defects detected in the weld bead. The results show that the FCAW-S welding process had the greater resistance up to the air streams. Besides, the main problem in the weld beads was the presence of porosity generated by the losses of shielding gas.