from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Electron beam (EB) welding of thick materials is not an easy task and finding the correct welding parameters and conditions is one of the crucial factors especially when the quality of weld root is required. The undesirable features of an electron beam weld can lead to premature failure or reduces the effectiveness of the resulting components (for example impellers). In attempts to understand how these defects are formed, the formation of EB cavity is primary importance. The greatest significance is attributed to the cavity oscillation in size and shape due to the rapid pressure and temperature changes which occurs during formation of EB cavity. These dynamic behaviors of molten metal during EBW enable creation of liquid metal protrusions in cavity instabilities – spiking. In the preset paper the initial results of several steel and titanium plates with different thickness welded without filler metal are presented. During the welding various approaches have been verified to eliminating the spiking. For spiking elimination the modification of weld joint configuration was tested, using of solder, using of background material and modification of EB welding process parameters. The obtained results are complemented by microstructure analysis and by evaluation of the quality and appearance of the weld root.
Keywords: electron beam welding, spiking, steel, titanium alloy, thick welds© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.