3.1 Joint morphology and strain feature
Figure 3 shows The morphology of 304L stainless steel joint obtained by plasma arc and argon tungsten arc welding (PAW + GTAW) process. It is found that the front GTAW weld ripple is smooth and neat and the weld pool height is uniform. There is a good fusion between both sides of base metal. Back-shaping is also got by single weld with PAW in the help of keyhole effect and the back bead is fully penetrated with a good appearance. Figure 3b shows the cross-section feature of PAW + GTAW joint. The internal quality of the filled metal is uniform with deep penetration characteristics of PAW bead and a complete fusion between GTAW and PAW weld bead.
A sample with a length of 300mm including filled metal and base metal was prepared for strain treatment and the total strain was 9%. The surface of specimen was marked at an equal distance of 10mm, as shown in Fig. 4a. After strain, the distance between the every two original marked lines was measured and the result is shown in Fig. 4b. Strain varies in different region of the whole 304L joint including BM, WM and HAZ. It suggests that ability to resist deformation in BM, WM and HAZ is different although the total average strain is 9%.
The strain in the weld metal (WM) has a minimum value of about 3% and it has a peak value of 13% in HAZ. It is mainly related to the microstructure characteristics with different crystal lattice. Figure 5a shows microstructure in 304L joint got by PAW + GTAW. It can be obviously seen that there is a large number of delta ferrite (δ-F) with body-centered cubic (bcc) crystal structure in WM and austenite (A) with face-centered cubic (fcc) crystal structure in HAZ as welded.
The strain condition is known to exert a significant influence on the dislocation substructure and density [15]. There is less δ-F slip systems in bcc, which makes it easier to stack dislocations and increase deformation resistance [16]. Therefore, the strain is only 3% in WM with a lot of δ-F. The larger deformation in HAZ is attributed to the weakening of austenitic grain boundary experiencing strain, as shown in Fig. 5b. Meanwhile, there are more austenite slip systems in fcc system and martensite shearing occurs in grains, which makes stress concentration relax and reduces slip resistance and it is conducive to deformation in different orientations of austenite. These results indicate that the generation of dislocations in the HAZ provides a greater strengthening effect than that in the weld metal.
3.2. Microstructure evolution
Figure 6 shows the microstructure comparison of 304L steel joint as welded and after strain. The distribution of delta ferrite (δ-F) in GTAW filled metal is relatively concentrated and the large part is skeletal δ-F with some interfacial characteristics such as migrating grain boundary (MGB), solidified grain boundary (SGB) and solidified sub grain boundary (SSGB), as shown in Fig. 6a. The skeletal δ-F provides a greater resistance to plastic flow during strain. The microstructure in weld metal by GTAW becomes fine and dense with decreasing ferrite lath gap along the deformation, refer Fig. 6b. The interfacial characteristics with solidification grain boundary are not obvious. The structure of delta ferrite is slender and irregular. The fine delta ferrite introduces an increased number of dislocation sources, which act as barriers to the mobile dislocations [15].
Figure 6c shows the microstructure in PAW backing layer as weld and it is mainly composed of austenite (A) and delta ferrite (δ-F). Temperature in molten pool is high and the temperature gradient is large under the action of high energy plasma arc. Therefore, Austenite is generated by eutectic reaction of ferrite cell boundary and dendrite boundary. The distribution of austenite and delta ferrite in the weld metal by plasma arc is not uniform and orientation of austenite is obvious. This is because the transformation from reaction in Fe-Ni system to eutectic reaction in Fe-Cr-Ni system is greatly affected by the diffusion of solute atoms in the front of solid-liquid interface.
Figure 6d shows the microstructure characteristic in the weld metal for PAW after strain. It is found that the grain in WM has been elongated along the deformation direction. The epitaxial growth of weld grain leads to the transformation from cellular dendrite to columnar grain, and there are fewer dense non-uniform shear deformation bands after strain. Some studies [13, 15] have shown the effect of different strain rates on the microstructure transformation of 304 stainless steel, it is revealed that these fine spacing shear bands are the product of changing the microstructure of austenitic stainless steel in the process of strain strengthening, and the dislocation in the weld is prone to pile up. In the present study, it is assumed that the difference between the closely packed lattice planes in the delta ferrite and those in the austenite does not represent the source of micro-shear band formation and martensitic nucleation. Consequently, there are fewer formations of martensite and micro-shear bands in the WM.
Some inhomogeneity of microstructure is shown in narrow HAZ affected by the welding thermal cycling shown in Fig. 7a. The grain size of HAZ is large and grain growth occurs near the high temperature zone due to the concentrated energy by plasma arc. The current high-resolution lattice image display that presence of dislocation is limited to the austenite structures shown in Fig. 7b. There is also a small amount of ferrite can be observed in the HAZ, and there is a trend of extending from the fusion zone to the HAZ along the direction of large temperature gradient. The ferrite in HAZ has no liquid-solid phase transformation but only solid phase transformation.
Figure 7c shows that there are α'-martensite (α'-M) formations and micro-shear bands in the HAZ of the weldments after strain. The formation of micro-shear bands and martensite appears to be influenced by the high density dislocation in austenite grain. The stacking fault energy of austenite is low, which provides the driving force for martensitic transformation [17]. The martensitic lath are parallel or cross distributed in austenite grains, as shown in Fig. 7d. Since the α'-M formations with different orientation overlap within the austenite, an increased volume of martensitic transformation causes a corresponding reduction of austenite, which not only influences the motion of the dislocations, but also reduces the number of twin formations. Meanwhile, More stacking faults in austenite promote the accumulation of solute atoms at the stacking faults, which increase the resistance of deformation dislocation expansion to play a strain strengthening effect [14]. The deformation dislocation, micor-shear band and their intersection location will become the preferential nucleation area of martensitic transformation [15]. The original grains in HAZ are elongated and the grains are broken with the grain boundaries disappeared after strain. A similar observation was reported by Lee and Lin [18], who stated that dense deformation slip bands and finer lath martensite were found in the grains under the larger strain.
The formation of martensite depends on stacking fault energy. With the increase of stacking fault energy, stacking fault overlap becomes more and more irregular to make martensite nucleation difficult [19]. Figure 8 shows the α'-M formation in austenite during strain. It is noted that origin of α'-M is dislocation and then occurrence of dislocation increment is found in the deformed microstructure under strain, refer Fig. 8b. When dislocations are more and more, the different dislocation will meet and merge each other, refer Fig. 8c. The dynamic mechanical behavior at a specific strain can be associated with the work-hardening stress, which in turn is related to the dislocation density. At this time, some stacking faults form and they are parallel in austenite grain, which provides driving force to α'-M formation, refer Fig. 8d. It suggests that the stacking faults act as precursor to the deformation-induced formation of α'-M at larger strain of 13%. Meanwhile, some dislocations and even stacking faults with different orientation occur and they slip to form martensite lath with deformation, refer Fig. 8e. Finally, the martensite lath with network is shown in austenite grain, refer Fig. 8f.
The microstructure evolutions in the HAZ of 304L joint reveal that the α′-M structures and micro-shear bands are both formed in the austenite grain experiencing strain by 13%. This is attributed to the motion of different orientation dislocation under the condition of deformation. It is also noted that the larger deformation is in the joint, the finer martensite lath can be formed.
3.3. Effect on mechanical properties
The present microstructural observations provide insights into the evolution of the dislocation slip and martensite transformation after strain. However, it is also desirable to study the effect of strain on mechanical properties of weldment in order to better understand the characteristics of the 304L steel joint by PAW + GTAW under high strain deformation. Figure 9 depicts that tensile strength is greatly different between the joint as welded (AW) and that after strain (AS). It is also noted that there is a significant effect of strain on tensile strength and fracture location of 304L steel weldment at both room temperature 25℃ and low temperature of -196℃.
It can be seen that the tensile strength of 304L steel weldment as welded is 700MPa and the fracture occurs in the HAZ at 25℃. The tensile strength increases to 804MPa after strain. This suggests that joint has an obvious strengthening of 104MPa induced by strain and it is more apparent at -196℃. The tensile strength increases from 1480MPa to 1700MPa and the fracture occurs on the base metal, refer Fig. 9b. It is related to transformation of α′-M with high hardness phase at larger strain of 13% in HAZ. Meanwhile, there are in a large number of dislocations and twins in the austenite grains. Compared to 304L steel joint as welded fracturing in HAZ, deformation of in the weld metal and base metal is smaller.
In addition, the dislocation accumulation and increment in austenitic grain may form cellular structure, and the deformation twins produced in the process of strain can also induce strengthening effect, which improves the strength of 304L steel weldment. There is obvious necking phenomenon in the tensile fracture at 25℃, as shown in Fig. 10a. However the fracture at low temperature of -196℃ is relatively flat, and the martensitic transformation structure shows greater brittleness under low temperature stress, as shown in Fig. 10b. The tensile fracture morphology at -196℃ is obvious brittle feature with much more cleavage step pattern.
Figure 11shows the impact absorption energy of 304L weld joint at low temperature (-196℃). It is noted that the impact toughness in base metal (BM), the heat affected zone (HAZ) and weld metal (WM) decreases after strain treatment. Especially, the impact toughness in HAZ reduces to 94J from 116J as welded. This can be explained by the microstructure characteristics after strain. There are a lot of ferrite in the WM which can limit the sharp decreasing of ductility and toughness. The grain boundary can prevent the dislocation from slipping resulted to higher impact toughness than that in HAZ. While the less impact toughness in HAZ is mainly due to the formation of deformed martensite with high strength, high hardness and low toughness. The crystal distortion and dislocation density increase in austenite grain after strain strengthening, which leads to the decrease of impact toughness at -196℃. These deformed martensite lath and dislocations accumulated at grain boundaries result in stress concentration and impact toughness reduction after strain. The fracture morphology with more deep cleavages is also shown in Fig. 11b compared to that as welded.
Figure 12 shows the representative impact fracture surfaces of the specimens both notched at the weld metal (WM) and the heat affected zone (HAZ) under the condition of as welded and after strain. As shown in Fig. 12a and Fig. 12b, most of pattern is dimple zone in fracture surface of WM as welded and there are fewer tearing with elongated dimple shown in WM after strain. The stress-fracture regions as welded are covered with ~ 5µm-diameter and ~ 50µm diameter dimples. The small-dimple area in the specimen as welded shows deep holes and the corresponding impact toughness is up to 122J. A comparison of the fracture surfaces of the specimens strained shows that the area of dimple is less with more obvious tearing feature than that in as welded specimens. The diameter of the large dimples increased with decreasing small-dimple area. The strain conducted has decreased the average size of the dimples in WM.
Figure 12c shows the fracture morphology of impact toughness tested specimens in HAZ as welded. It is a mixture of dimple and few quasi-cleavages, which reflects an interaction between the cleavage cracks and grains suffered plastic deformation [20]. Dimple fracture is a known kind of ductile fracture which occurs during high energy absorption process. However, quasi-cleavage is a kind of brittle fracture. It can be concluded that the fracture of the as welded specimen exhibits a mixed-mode of brittle and ductile rupture. Large numbered cleavage steps occur in the impact fracture surface after strain specimens as shown in Fig. 12d. In comparison to Fig. 12c, the cleavage area is found to be larger, which indicated an identical brittle fracture feature with less toughness after strain. This is distributed in the true strain treated by 13% deformation in HAZ. There are a lot of micro defects such as dislocations in the grain caused by martensite sheared in HAZ after strain, which leads to the stress concentration and the formation of microcracks in the process of impact loading. The micro-crack accelerates the crack growth and is unfavorable to the impact toughness.