3 Manganese and carbon Manganese and carbon are alloying elements deliberately added to mild steels and mild steel weld metals; both influence strength and toughness. However, in weld metals, excess carbon is undesirable because of its generally detrimental influence on weldability (Ref. 4, Ch. 1) - particularly cracking problems ~ so that manganese is the only practical way of controlling mechanical properties without recourse to more expensive alloying elements. Manganese also serves as a deoxidant, as does silicon (discussed in Chapter 6). However, silicon is also undesirable other than in small quantities (generally <0.5%), hence the particular importance of manganese. ‘The base composition studied in this and the following six chap- ters was one in which trace amounts of micro-alloying elements were present in sufficient quantities to allow formation of acicular ferrite should other conditions be suitable. The detailed effects of the various micro-alloying elements themselves are discussed in Parts IV and V. Manganese During the present, in some ways initial investigation, welds (Ref. 8, Ch. 2) were deposited from electrodes made using a coating factor of 1.70 (rather than the value of 1.68 later standardised) and using ferro- manganese to achieve nominal manganese contents of 0.6, 1.0, 1.4 and 1.8%, For easy reference, these compositions were coded A, B, C and D, respectively. The electrodes were made from the normal raw materials used for manufacture of good quality basic electrodes. The welds examined and discussed in this section differed from those deposited with what became the standard procedure in that an inter- pass temperature of 150 °C was used, rather than 200 °C selected as standard for all later welds, including those described in the second part of this chapter.24 Metallurgy of basic weld metal Table 3.1 Composition of weld metal having varying manganese content, Element, wt% Ma SiS. Pp N ° Electrode code 0.035 0.66 0.300.006 0.013 0.007 0.049 A B 0.038 1.00 0.30 0.005 (0.014 0.010 0.046 ie} 0.049 1.42 0.34 0.005 0.013 0.009 0.041 D 0.051 1.82 0.34 0.006 0.017 0.009 0.039 Note: typical impurity levels were 0.03%Cr, Ni, Cu, 0.005%Mo, 120 ppm V, 55 ppm Ti, 20 ppm Nb, 5 ppm Al and 2 ppm B. ‘The chemical compositions of the weld metals with varying man- ganese contents are detailed in Table 3.1. Analysis of welds tested in the stress-relieved condition gave similar results and typical impurity levels are given as a footnote to the table. In general, the compositions were well balanced and invariant ele- ments showed reasonably constant levels, except that carbon, silicon and phosphorus increased slightly as manganese was increased, whilst oxygen decreased. The changes in oxygen (and also carbon) are con- sistent with manganese acting as a deoxidant at this level of addition Because of this relatively constant behaviour, analyses given for some later series are less detailed and reference should be made to original papers for complete results. Similarly, if there were no significant effects to report, some results on other features and properties are less detailed in subsequent chapters. Metallographic examination A transverse macrosection of a typical weld deposit is shown in Fig, 3.1, which should be compared with the idealised sketch in Fig. 2.1 Measurements of the proportions of columnar, coarse and fine grained regions were made on such cross sections; these are sum- marised graphically in Fig. 3.2. The widths of the remaining colum- nar zones in each run varied irregularly, as did the widths of the coarse grained regions, so that no influence of manganese was apparent. In some runs the columnar region was completely absent. In the regions where notches of Charpy specimens would be located, the measured proportions of the different zones are given in Table 3.2. Typical microstructures of the three zones of deposit of all four manganese levels are shown in Fig. 3.3-3.5.4 ee a | iS Sa |e | gts an Bao | i ! §[-weceneve 3.2 Zone distribution along the vertical plane for duplicate welds of varying manganese content.