Microstructure, mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of austenitic stainless steel sheet joints welded by gas tungsten arc (GTA) and ultrasonic–wave–assisted gas tungsten pulsed arc (U–GTPA)

Here, ultrasonic–wave–assisted gas tungsten pulsed arc (U–GTPA) welding is proposed as a new alternative welding process to gas tungsten arc (GTA) welding. To better understand the advantages of this new process, in this paper, the microstructure, mechanical properties and corrosion behavior of GTA- and U–GTPA-welded joints of 316L stainless steel are systematically compared. These results show that the weld zone (WZ) depth-to-width ratio of the U–GTPA-welded joint increased, and the area of the equiaxed grain zone was larger than that of the GTA-welded joint. This results in finally increasing the strength and hardness for U–GTPA-welded joints, and the ultimate tensile strength and elongation of the U–GTPA-welded joints were 7.1% and 26.2% greater than those of the GTA-welded joint, respectively. For the U–GTPA-welded joint, under the action of the pulsed arc, the grain distribution with high-angle boundaries (HABs) was different from that of the GTA-welded joint. The minimum of the HAB fraction corresponded to the fracture position for both joints in tensile tests. It shows that a large number of HABs were beneficial in improving joint tensile properties. However, for electrochemical corrosion experiments of two WZs in 3.5% NaCl solution, despite this GTA WZ having a higher HAB fraction, the corrosion current density and corrosion potential of U–GTA WZ were lower and higher than those of the GTA WZ, respectively. The corrosion rate and corrosion sensitivity of U–GTPA WZ indicated good corrosion resistance.