Sadhana - Academy Proceedings in Engineering Sciences, vol.48, no.2, 2023 (SCI-Expanded)
Stainless steels have been increasingly used for agricultural and food processing, biogas, architecture, automotive, machine-manufacturing, biomedicine, chemical, and petrochemical industry due to their corrosion resistance and sanitary qualities. Dissimilar stainless steels may need to be utilized together in various fields due to their different properties. Therefore, it is important to weld dissimilar stainless steel, which are employed in these fields, with strong mechanical properties. However, the requirement to join many metals, each of which has different properties, on the same construction may result in the emergence of some problems. The properties of the weld zone as well as the quality of the welded joints depend on the selection of the optimal welding parameters and the kind of shielding gas. Therefore, estimating the quality and service life of dissimilar stainless steel joints requires to understand the weld zone’s properties better. Therefore, it is important to investigate the effect of shielding gases and gas combinations on the welding of dissimilar stainless steels in the welding process. In this study, AISI 316 austenitic stainless steel and AISI 430 ferritic stainless steel were joined utilizing the metal inert gas (MIG) welding with different shielding gas combinations. In welding processes, 100% Ar, 97% Ar+3% H2, and 93% Ar+7% H2 gas combinations were used. The welded sheets were subjected to hardness, tensile, and bending tests in addition to metallographic testing. The effects of the shielding gas combinations on the mechanical and microstructural properties of AISI 316 austenitic and AISI 430 ferritic stainless steel connections were investigated through these tests.