Prevention of solidification cracking with auxiliary heat source

A host of studies indicated that it is difficult to prevent solidification cracks in fully austenitic steel welds simply by adjusting the chemical composition of the weld. One possible way of doing so is to decrease the tensile stress and strain during solidification. In this paper, measures to decrease the tensile strain of weld by heating the base metal near the Brittle Temperature Range (BTR) with an auxiliary heat source are described. The results show that it is effective to prevent cracking if the power and location of auxiliary heat source are well-chosen.