Designing Shielded Metal Arc Consumables for Underwater Wet Welding in Offshore Applications

Abstract

The use of underwater wet welding for offshore repairs has been limited mainly because of porosity and low toughness in the resulting welds. With appropriate consumable design, however, it is possible to reduce porosity and to enhance weld metal toughness through microstructural refinement. New titanium and boron-based consumables have been developed with which high toughness acicular ferrite (AF) can be produced in underwater wet welds. Titanium, by means of oxide formation, promoted an increase in the amount of acicular ferrite in the weld metal, while boron additions decreased the amount of grain boundary ferrite (GBF), further improving the microstructure. Porosity reduction was possible through the addition of calcium carbonate at approximately 13 wt percent in the electrode coating. However, weld metal decarburization also resulted with the addition of carbonate.