XXII INTERNATIONAL MATERIALS RESEARCH CONGRESS

THERMAL AND MICROSTRUCTURAL ANALISYS OF WELDING IN THE HEAT

AFFECTED ZONE OF A NEW HIGH STRENGHT MICROALLOYED STEEL
1

1, 3

E. Lpez-Martnez , O. Martnez , J. Mayen , B. Campillo .

1
Facultad de Qumica-Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico, Circuito de la investigacin cientfica
2
s/n, Mxico D. F. 04510, Mxico, e-mail: info.fq@servidor.unam.mx, CIICAp-Universidad Autnoma del
Estado de Morelos, Av. Universidad 1001, Cuernavaca, Morelos 62209, Mxico, e-mail:
3
jgpeva@uaem.mx, Instituto de Ciencias Fsicas-Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico,
Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mxico, e-mail: webmaster@fis.unam,mx.

Microalloyed steels achieve their final microstructure and final engineering properties by
thermomechanical processes, so they are replacing heat treated steels. Welding is one
of the main processes used to manufacture structural components, where
microstructural features presented, because of the thermal cycles in the heat affected
zone (HAZ), may be detrimental to the proper behavior of the structural component1.
In this work, the effect produced by welding heat cycles on microstructural and
microhardness in the affected zone of new high strength microallloyed steel was
studied. To determine this effect, an electrical arc on a microalloyed steel plate by gas
tungsten arc welding processes (GTAW) was produced. In order to obtain high quality
welds, a plasma cutting machine was adapted for placing the GTAW welding torch; with
this, we achieved a constant welding speed and a constant distance between the
electrode and the plate. Samples were obtained from the weld zone to metallographic
preparation and a scanning of microhardness Vickers was performed. To perform the
thermal analysis of welding, the thermal conductivity and heat capacity were determined
from the design of two artificial neural networks of the multilayer perceptron type using a
back-propagation algorithm with supervised training. The thermal cycles that were
experimented in the HAZ were determinated by measuring the HAZ's thickness that
was obtained experimentally and applying a weight factor to the Rosenthal's analytical
solutions for thin and thick plates2. It was noted that there is no appreciable difference in
microhardness between coarse grained subzone (CGHAZ) and recrystallization
subzone (RCHAZ).
Keywords:
Microalloyed steel, thermal cycles, heat affected zone thickness, artificial neural networks
References:
1. Z. Ying-qiao, Z. Han-qian, Li Jin-fu and L. Wei-ming. Effect of Heat Input on Microstructure and
Toughness of Coarse Grain Heat Affected Zone in Nb Microalloyed HSLA Steels, Journal of Iron and
Steel Research International, 16(5), pp. 73-80, 2009.
2. K. Poorhaydari, B. M. Patchett and D. G. Ivey. Estimation of Cooling Rate in the Welding of Plates with
Intermediate Thickess, Welding Journal, pp. 149-155, 2005.
Presenting authors email: edgar0902@comunidad.unam.mx