The heat input into the material during welding significantly affects the properties of high-strength steels in the near-weld zone. A zone of hardness decrease forms, which is called the soft zone. The width of the soft zone also depends on the cooling time t8/5. An investigation of the influence of welding parameters on the resulting properties of welded joints can be performed by thermal physical simulation. In this study, the effect of the cooling rate on the mechanical properties of the heat-affected zone of the steel S960MC with a thickness of 3 mm was investigated. Thermal physical simulation was performed on a Gleeble 3500. Three levels of cooling time were used, which were determined from the reference temperature cycle obtained by metal active gas welding (MAG). A tensile test, hardness measurement, impact test with fracture surface evaluation, and microstructural evaluation were performed to investigate the modified specimen thickness. The shortest time t8/5 = 7 s did not provide tensile and yield strength at the minimum required value. The absorbed energy after recalculation to the standard sample size of 10 × 10 mm was above the 27 J limit at −40 °C. The hardness profile also depended on the cooling rate and always had a softening zone.

In this paper are presented results of mechanical properties evaluation of the thin sheets welds made of the S960MC TMCP steel, which were executed using the GMAW procedure with different process parameters. The microstructural changes in the heat affected zone (HAZ) were evaluated, as well. The microstructural observation revealed significant changes in the HAZ and the three main zones, coarse grain, fine grain and intercritical (CGHAZ, FGHAZ and ICHAZ) were identified in the HAZ for both sets of tested welding parameters. Evaluation of the micro-hardness showed significant reduction of the micro-hardness in the ICHAZ, for both tested states, and the ICHAZ was identified as the most critical area of the whole welded joint. Results of the tensile tests revealed significant reduction of mechanical properties regardless of the welding parameters.

The TMCP (thermo-mechanically controlled processed) steels belong to the group of ultra-high strength steels, which exhibit exceptional combination of high tensile and yield strength, toughness and ductility. These steels were introduced in the heavy machinery constructions, such as heavy mobile cranes, chassis trucks and other to reduce their weight, what increases their loading capacity and ecology of transport. The high tensile and yield strength of this type of steels is obtained by the combination of the chemical composition, heat treatment and the mechanical processing. However, the heat input into the material during the welding significantly affect properties of the steel and the whole joint. In this paper are presented results of mechanical properties evaluation and structural analysis of the welds of the thin sheets made of the S960MC steel, which were welded using the GMAW procedure. The microstructural evaluation referred significant changes in the HAZ. This area contains the three sub-zones, coarse grain (CGHAZ), fine grain (FGHAZ) and intercritical zone (ICHAZ). Analysis of microhardness and the tensile tests results showed, that ICHAZ is the most critical area of the whole welded joint.

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In the paper, the methods for determining heat affected zones during arc weld surfacing is presented. For this purpose, numerical simulations of the temperature field were performed using the Ansys and Sysweld programs based on the finite element method. The Goldak heat source model was used in the computations. Based on the maximum temperature values, the characteristic heat affected zones (remelting zone, fusion line, austenitization zone) have been determined. The results of calculations were compared with the boundaries of individual zones determined by the analytical method using a double volumetric Gaussianparabolic heat source model and obtained experimentally. Finally, the possibility of mapping the fusion line was assessed using particular heat source methods, programs and models.