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.
The high cycle and very high cycle fatigue properties of the titanium alloy Ti6Al4V with a duplex microstructure were investigated at room temperature. High cycle fatigue tests were performed in the range from 10 4 to 10 7 cycles by rotating bending at the frequency of 30 Hz. The very high cycle fatigue tests were carried out in the range from 10 7 to 10 10 cycles in tension-compression on an ultrasonic fatigue testing machine at the frequency of 20 kHz. The stress amplitude was found to decrease with increasing number of cycles in the whole range from 10 4 up to 10 9 cycles and only at the highest number of cycles (NF = 10 9 ) the alloy exhibits the fatigue limit of 460 MPa. The detail fractographic analysis was performed to characterize the fatigue failure mechanisms. Both subsurface and surface crack initiation were observed in very high cycle fatigue region. No inclusions, but only local chemical inhomogeneity in microstructure was observed at the locations of subsurface fatigue crack initiation in alpha-grains.
Ultrasonic impact peening was applied on welded joints manufactured from Strenx 700 MC high strength low alloy steel with the aim to improve the fatigue properties. Three different surface treatment parameters were tested, which resulted in transformation of the near-surface tensile residual stresses in the weld metal and heat affected zone to compressive residual stress field, while maximal values from −400 MPa up to −800 MPa were reached. The highest fatigue life improvement was reached by the double peening with the 85 N contact force, where the fatigue limit for N = 108 cycles increased from 370 MPa to 410 MPa.
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