Characterization of Microstructure and Nonmetallic Inclusions of Double V Grooved Armour Steel Weld Metal Through Developed Coated Electrode

摘要

Abstract The work attempted to develop coated electrodes based on the microstructural design to improve the ballistic performance of weld metals of high strength armour steel. In the present investigation, three different types of coated electrodes were developed by systematic variations of flux composition starting with basic flux and addition of different ferroalloys in the electrode coating to obtain weld deposits with a microstructure predominantly martensite, bainite, and some retained austenite. Finally, butt joints were made using three developed electrodes and microstructures of the weld metals were exclusively characterized using optical microscopy, SEM, TEM and XRD along with nonmetallic inclusions study. It was observed that different types of electrodes mainly varied in the carbon content of the weld metals and with increasing carbon content of the weld metal, more martensite (71.29?%) with retained austenite (4.7?%) and less bainite (24.01?%) were observed.