Stainless Steel Welding Consumables Introduction—Solid Wire

1.Welding Consumables Selection and Recommendation：

  Specification of Stainless Steel solid wire and rod welding according to AWS A5.9: It is based on composition and welding wire types. The information of the tensile strength is not shown on specification. It generally consists of ERXXX in the specification, for instance, ECXXX representing the composite welding wire or stranded welding wire; the EQ representing the welding band.

2.Welding Operation Points：

(1)Storage Management：

Relevant to storage management, please refer to the instructions of solid wires in carbon steel.

(2)Welding Precausion：

①Stainless steel solid wire is based on GMAW welding with the gas shield of either 98%Ar + 2%O2 or 95~98%Ar + 2~5%CO2. It may cause the carbon content increased in the weld when use CO2 as gas shield; the worse corrosion resistance, and whereas it reaches high penetration in the weld by using with mixed gas of argon and helium. 

 

②Welding current polarity mainly uses DC(+) on GMAW welding. When take shallow penetration into consideration, the DC(-) is the selection as the same as GTAW welding.

 

③When the arc transition is carried under spraying arc move on GMAW welding, the recommended welding voltage is set in the condition of the arc height at 5mm. The shorter arc height is easy to cause blowholes in the weld, and whereas the longer easily causes the weld undercut and poor expansion of the weldpool.

 

④In GMAW welding, the protective measure of the weld blowholes should be taken when the wind speed is greater than 0.5 m/s. 

 

⑤When weld the full penetration of the bottom welding in GTAW welding method, it should pay attention to the matchup of the welding current and the length extension of the tungsten rod. Besides, it is also required backing protection in order to reach the bottom with full penetration. Firstly, it needs to break the root of the groove face by arc and then fill it up. In case, it is recommended to use flux-cored TIG for the bottom welding with full penetration if the backing not available on site. 

 

⑥GTAW mainly uses 100% Ar for gas shield, the welding current in 100~200A with the recommended flow setting at 8~15 l/min, and whereas the flow setting at 12~15 l/min if the current in 200~300A.

 

⑦The rest, refer to the precautions of stainless steel flux-cored wire.