In this study, a three-dimensional model has been utilized for predicting thermal responses during tungsten arc welding of AA2024-T4 plates in which double ellipsoidal heat source model was employed to consider the moving torch in the model. Furthermore, tensile and hardness tests and microstructural evaluations have been carried out to investigate the mechanical properties and the microstructures within the welded metal. The results show that there is a region inside the heat-affected zone where hardness increases while in some parts of this region having temperatures higher than 250 °C the hardness decreases significantly. Furthermore, natural aging occurs after welding; however, its kinetics is not the same in different regions of the weldment owing to the differences in the imposed thermal cycles.
Large portions of infrastructure buildings, for example highway- and railway bridges, are steel constructions and reach the end of their service life, as a reason of an increase of traffic volume. As lifetime extension of a commonly used weld detail (transverse stiffener) of these structures, a validated approach for the weld repair was proposed in this study. For this, welded joints made of S355J2+N and S960QL steels were subjected to cyclic loading until a pre-determined crack depth was reached. The cracks were detected by non-destructive testing methods and repaired by removal of the material around the crack and re-welding with the gas metal arc welding (GMAW). Then, the specimens were subjected to cyclic loading again. The hardness, the weld geometry, and the residual stress state was investigated for both the original- and the repaired conditions. It was determined that nearly all repaired specimens reached at least the fatigue life of the original specimen.
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