Results in Physics 12 (2019) 840–845

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Results in Physics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rinp

Effect of laser-MIG hybrid welding on microstructure and properties of T

seismic steel plate for buildings
Zhou Mingrong
Zhejiang Industry Polytechnic College, Shaoxing 312000, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Single pass multi-layer welding tests were carried out on 10Ni5CrMoV steel plate for construction, the effects of
Laser-MIG hybrid welding welding energy input and welding speed on the microstructures, hardness and impact energy at −40 °C of
10Ni5CrMoV 10Ni5CrMoV steel welded joints were studied. The results showed that, with the decrease of welding energy
Welding energy input input and the increase of welding speed, the structure in the weld zone gradually transforms from granular
Welding speed
bainite to martensite and a small amount of upper bainite, and the grain size in the coarse and fine grain areas in
Structure and properties
the heat affected zone gradually decreases, and the content of granular bainite decreases. The optimum welding
process for 10Ni5CrMoV steel is welding energy input with 7.5 KJ/cm and welding speed with 1.25 m/min, at
this time, the weld structure is granular bainite, acicular ferrite, a small amount of upper bainite and a small
amount of martensite; The dispersed Al2O3, TiN or TiC composite phase formed during welding process can be
used as nucleation core of ferrite, helpful to form acicular ferrite in the weld zone, and the welded joint of
10Ni5CrMoV steel has the best impact toughness.

Introduction
Carbon structural steel and low alloy high strength structural steel
are two main types of construction steel, with the development of large-
scale bridges, buildings and structures towards large-span, high-rise and
high-rise, as well as the development of energy and marine platforms,
the output of low alloy steel has increased substantially in the past
30 years, and its output in major steel-producing countries has ac-
counted for the total output of steel, about 7–10% of them are used in
housing construction and civil engineering, among which 35–50% are
used in steel bar, steel structure profiles and slabs, and the proportion of
low-alloy steel used in civil engineering steel structure has increased
from 10% to more than 30%. Various countries vigorously develop
various kinds of high-efficiency steel products different from ordinary
steel products, and have been widely used in the construction industry,
and achieved obvious economic benefits [1]. The traditional construc-
tion steel usually adopts the methods of laser wire filling welding and
laser hybrid welding. However, because the actual welding conditions
are different, and different types of lasers and protective atmosphere
will affect the welding process and performance. Therefore, on the basis
of a large number of welding experiments, finding out the principle of
laser hybrid welding is very important for popularizing this welding
technology [2–4], However, the selection of welding parameters is
different from that of conventional welding methods in laser rapid
heating and cooling multi-pass hybrid welding process, so it is neces-
sary to study the effect of welding parameters. In this paper, the
10Ni5CrMoV steel plate is taken as the research object, and the effects
of welding energy input and welding speed on the microstructure and
properties of composite welded joints are investigated, the results can
provide necessary technical support for the application of welding and
repair engineering of high-strength seismic steel plate.
Materials and methods
Test material
Taking 10Ni5CrMoV steel plate of 36 mm thickness as raw material,
and TH850W welding wire as welding wire, the specific chemical
composition are list in Table 1. The supply state of 10Ni5CrMoV steel
plate is quenched and tempered, and its microstructure is tempered
sorbite, with the tensile strength is 700 MPa, the yield strength is
620 MPa, the elongation after fracture is 26%, and the impact energy at
−40 °C is 200 J.
Welding method
A fast axial-flow CO2 laser excited by German Trumpf is used in the
welding laser, the maximum output power is 15 KW, the laser wave-
length is 10 μm, the focal length is 350 mm, and the focal radius is
0.4 mm, different torches are installed on laser welded joints to realize
hybrid welding. The welding process of building steel is pure laser
welding add laser-single MIG compound welding [5].Welding sample
has V-shaped groove with angle of 20°, blunt edge is 16 mm; The first
pass is pure laser welding, the output power is 14 KW, the welding

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2018.12.054
Received 27 November 2018; Received in revised form 11 December 2018; Accepted 11 December 2018
Available online 14 December 2018
2211-3797/ © 2018 The Author. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY-NC-ND/4.0/).
M. Zhou Results in Physics 12 (2019) 840–845

Table 1
Chemical composition of 10Ni5CrMoV steel and TH850W welding wire (wt.%).
Material C Si Mn P S Cr Ni Mo
10Ni5CrMoV 0.11 0.20 0.37 0.008 0.006 1.01 2.41 0.20
TH850W 0.07 0.38 1.28 0.007 0.004 0.21 2.38 0.22
speed is 0.5 m/min, and the argon gas protection is applied to 15 L/min;
The second and the last passes are laser-single MIG compound welding,
and four different welding processes are used for welding, the protec-
tive gas is 80% He + 20% Ar with flow rate at 15 L/min, the specific
process parameters are shown in Table 2.
Test method
Macroscopic morphology of cross section of weld area was observed
by PXS5 continuous diploid microscope; Metallographic samples were
polished, machined and corroded with 5 g FeCl3 + 50 ml HCl + 100 ml
H2O solution, then observed by inverted metallographic microscope
Zeiss Axiovert 40 MAT; Microstructure of weld area was observed by
JEM2010 transmission electron microscope; HV-1000 digital hardness
tester was used to test the hardness according to GB/T 4340.1–2009
standard, the loading load is 300 g and kept for 30 s; The impact test
was carried out on a pendulum impact tester at −40 °C according to
ASTM E23-16b standard, three samples were taken from each group,
and the average value was taken as the final result of the test.
Results and analysis
Macro-profile
Fig. 1 shows the cross-sectional macro-morphology of building steel
welds under four welding processes. It can be seen that with the in-
crease of welding energy input, the number of welding passes increases
gradually; the upper weld width is larger than the lower weld width,
and there are no obvious defects such as pore inclusions in the whole
weld structure.
Hardness and impact energy
The microhardness distribution of welded joints under four welding
processes are tested, the results are shown in Fig. 2, and the testing
position is shown in the horizontal line in Fig. 1. The microhardness of
the weld zone presents gradient distribution characteristics under four
welding processes, with the decrease of welding energy input and the
increase of welding speed, the microhardness of the weld zone increases
gradually. When the linear energy is 5.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed
is 1.5 m/min (process D), the hardness of the weld zone is the largest;
when the linear energy is 11.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed is 0.75 m/
min (process A), the hardness of the weld zone is the smallest.
The impact toughness of the upper, middle and lower parts of the
building steel welds under four welding processes was tested, and the
results are as shown in Table 3. The upper part of the weld reflects the
impact toughness of laser-single MIG hybrid welding, the middle part
reflects the impact toughness of pure laser and laser-single MIG hybrid
welding, and the lower part reflects the impact toughness of pure laser
welding. Under four welding processes, the order of impact energy at
the upper part of the weld is C > D > B > A, the order of impact
Fe energy at the middle part of the weld is C > D > B > A, and the
order of impact energy at the lower part of the weld is C > D >
Bal. A > B. Under the four welding processes, the welding process C has
Bal.
the maximum impact energy at the upper, middle and lower part of the
weld under.
Microstructure
The metallographic structure of the weld zone in the upper weld
seam shown in Fig. 1 were observed under different welding processes,
the results are shown in Fig. 3. When the linear energy is 11.5 KJ/cm
and the welding speed is 0.75 m/min (process A), the microstructure of
the weld zone is granular bainite; when the linear energy is 9.5 KJ/cm
and the welding speed is 1.0 m/min (process B), the weld structure is
granular bainite, acicular ferrite and a small amount of upper bainite;
when the linear energy is 7.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed is 1.25 m/
min (process C), the weld structure is composed of granular bainite,
acicular ferrite, a small amount of upper bainite and a small amount of
martensite. When the linear energy is 5.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed
is 1.5 m/min (process D), the weld structure is mainly composed of
martensite and a small amount of upper bainite. The microstructural
transformation of weld zone under four welding processes is mainly
related to the linear energy and welding speed, with the decreasing of
welding energy input, the welding speed gradually increases, the re-
sidence time of melting zone at high temperature becomes shorter,
which increases the cooling speed of weld zone and makes the trans-
formation trend of weld microstructures from martensite to bainite
[6,7].
Fig. 4 shows the metallographic structure of coarse grained zone in
HAZ of welded joints under four welding processes. When the linear
energy is 11.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed is 0.75 m/min (process A),
the structure of coarse grained zone is mainly composed of martensite
and a small amount of granular bainite, and the grain size is about
35–60 µm. When the linear energy is 9.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed
is 1.0 m/min (process B), the structure of coarse grained zone is a small
amount of granular bainite, a small amount of carbide and martensite,
and the grain size is about 32–55 µm; when the linear energy is 7.5 KJ/
cm and the welding speed is 1.25 m/min (process C), the structure of
coarse grained zone is martensite, and the grain size is about 27–47 μm;
When the linear energy is 5.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed is 1.5 m/
min (process D), the structure of coarse grain zone is also martensite
and the grain size is about 23–44 µm. In addition, martensite slabs and
martensite bundles can be found in the coarse grained zone of HAZ
under four welding processes, the size of martensite slabs under process
A ∼ process D is 0.9–2.1, 0.8–2.0, 0.7–1.7 and 0.6–1.6 µm, and the size
of martensite bundles is 8–26, 8–21, 6–15 and 5.5–14 µm, respectively.
It can be seen that with the decrease of welding energy input and the
increase of welding speed, martensite lath size and martensite bundle
size have a decreasing trend.
Fig. 5 is the metallographic structure of fine grain zone in HAZ of
welded joints under four welding processes. When the linear energy is
11.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed is 0.75 m/min (process A), the fine
grain structure is mainly composed of martensite, a small amount of
granular bainite and a small amount of carbide, and the grain size is

Table 2
Processing parameters of laser-MIG hybrid welding.
Welding technology Energy input/KJ·cm−1 Welding speed/m.min−1 Laser power /KW Welding current /A Arc voltage/V Number of welding passes

A 11.5 0.75 5 250 30 6

B 9.5 1.0 5 250 30 8
C 7.5 1.25 5 250 30 10
D 5.5 1.5 5 250 30 12

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Fig. 1. Cross sections at different heat input in laser welding (a) A; (b) B; (c) C; (d)D.

Fig. 6 is the microstructures of the weld and heat-affected zone at

the lower part of the welded joint. In the fusion zone, the weld mi-
crostructures are composed of martensite + upper bainite + a small
amount of acicular ferrite. In the coarse grain region, the structure is
composed of martensite; the fine grained zone consists of fine mar-
tensite, small amount of granular bainite and carbide; the two-phase
structure is composed of martensite and sorbite. The main difference
between the upper structure of the welded joint and the upper structure
of the welded joint is the weld structure, as the weld is welded by pure
laser, the cooling speed is faster, so it is mainly martensite structure.
Under the four welding processes, the impact energy of the upper,
middle and lower parts of the weld under welding process C are at the
maximum, the microstructures of weld zone and heat-affected zone
under this welding process were observed by TEM, the results are
shown in Figs. 7–9. TEM observation on the upper part of weld C shows
that fine acicular ferrite exists in both bright and dark phases of weld
zone, and the acicular ferrite structure is very small, the aspect ratio is
about 8:1. By observing the precipitates in the weld zone in bright and
Fig. 2. Hardness distribution of Laser-MIG hybrid welding joints under dif- dark field, it can be seen that the size of nano-sized precipitates is about
ferent welding processes. 60 nm, the energy spectrum analysis shows that the precipitates mainly
contain elements such as Fe, C, Al, Ti, Cr and Mn, according to the
Table 3 literature [9,10], these precipitates may be Al2O3, TiN or TiC composite
Impact toughness of welding joint under different welding technology. phases formed in the welding process, these dispersed nano-precipitates
formed in the welding process can be used as nucleation core of ferrite,
Welding technology Impact energy at −40 °C/J
which can help to form acicular ferrite in the weld zone, and the
Upper weld seam Middle weld seam Lower weld seam hardness, strength and wear resistance of the welded zone are improved
to some extent [11]. Fig. 8 is TEM observation of coarse grained zone in
A 46 49 186 heat affected zone, the dislocation lath martensite structure exists in the
B 51 53 181
C 86 91 195
grains, and high density dislocation structure exists in the grains, re-
D 70 72 192 tained austenite can also be found between martensite laths. It can be
seen that the martensitic transformation in HAZ is not complete during
welding, and a small amount of retained austenite exists between
about 30–50 μm; When the linear energy is 9.5 KJ/cm and the welding martensitic slabs, which is helpful to improve the welding toughness of
speed is 1.0 m/min (process B), the fine grain structure is composed of a building steel [12].
small amount of granular bainite, a small amount of carbide and mar- From the metallographic and TEM microstructures of weld zone and
tensite [8], and the grain size is about 27–45 μm; when the linear en- heat affected zone, it can be seen that the content of bainite and aci-
ergy is 7.5 KJ/cm, the welding speed is 1.25 m/min (process C), and the cular ferrite gradually changes with the change of welding energy input
linear energy is 5.5 KJ/cm with the welding speed is 1.5 m/min, the and welding speed, this is mainly due to the mutual restriction between
fine-grained zone is composed of martensite, but the grain size of the bainite and acicular ferrite, while the content of acicular ferrite is re-
two is slightly different, the former is about 21–43 μm, and the latter is lated to that of acicular ferrite, the size, content and distribution of the
about 17–40 μm. With the decrease of welding energy input and the second phase are closely related. When the welding energy input and
increase of welding speed, the grain size and the number of granular welding speed are high, the high temperature duration in the welded
bainite in HAZ of welded joints decrease gradually. In addition, com- joint is short, and the agglomeration and growth trend of the second
pared with the coarse grain structure of HAZ under the same welding phase particles will weaken during the subsequent cooling process,
process, it can be found that the content of granular bainite and carbide which will increase the number of nucleation cores of acicular ferrite,
increases relatively. increase the content of acicular ferrite in the weld tissue, and decrease

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Fig. 3. Optical microstructure of welding area under different welding (a) A; (b) B; (c) C; (d) D.

the content of bainite. If the welding energy input is too low and the
welding speed is too high, martensite structure will be formed in the
weld structure, and the welded parts will have high strength but poor
toughness. In order to obtain welded parts with excellent comprehen-
sive properties, the best welding process should ensure that there are a
certain amount of acicular ferrite in the welding structure. For the
seismic steel plate in this paper, the suitable linear energy is 7.5 KJ/cm
and welding speed is 1.25 m/min, at this time, the weld structure is
composed of granular bainite, acicular ferrite, a small amount of upper
bainite and a small amount of martensite.
Conclusion
1) With the decrease of welding energy input and the increase of
welding speed, the microhardness of weld zone increases gradually.
When the linear energy is 5.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed is
1.5 m/min (process D), the hardness of the weld zone is the largest;
when the linear energy is 11.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed is
0.75 m/min (process A), the hardness of the weld zone is the
smallest.
2) The order of impact energy at −40 °C on the upper part of weld is:
C > D > B > A, the order of impact energy on the middle part of

Fig. 4. Microstructure of coarse grain zone in HAZ of welded joints (a) A; (b) B; (c) C; (d) D.

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Fig. 5. Optical microstructureof fine grain heat affected zone of the joint (a) A; (b) B; (c) C; (d) D.

Fig. 6. Microstructure of welded joint in the lower part (a) fusion Zone (b) coarse grain zone (c) fine grain zone (d) Two Phase Zone.

weld is: C > D > B > A, and the order of impact energy at
−40 °C on the lower part of weld is: C > D > A > B. Under the
four welding processes, the impact energy at −40 °C on the upper,
middle and lower parts of weld under the welding process C are the
maximum.
3) The size of martensite lath in process A–D is 0.9–2.1 μm, 0.8–2.0 μm,
0.7–1.7 μm and 0.6–1.6 μm, and the size of martensite beam group is
8–26 μm, 8–21 μm, 6–15 μm and 5.5–14 μm. With the decrease of
welding energy input and the increase of welding speed, the size of
martensite lath and martensite bundle have a decreasing trend.
4) When the welding energy input is 7.5 KJ/cm and the welding speed
is 1.25 m/min, the welding process is more suitable, and the weld
structure is composed of granular bainite, acicular ferrite, a small
amount of upper bainite and a small amount of martensite. The
dispersed Al2O3, TiN or TiC phases formed in the welding process
can be used as nucleation core of ferrite, which is helpful to form
acicular ferrite in the weld zone.

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Fig. 7. TEM observation of weld joint C bright field; (b) dark field; (c) Selection of electron diffraction patterns.

Fig. 8. TEM observation of the second phase for weld joint C bright field; (b) dark field; (c) EDS analysis.

Fig. 9. TEM observation of heat-affected area for weld joint C bright field; (b) dark field; (c) Selection of electron diffraction patterns.

Acknowledgments welding technology for long-distance pipeline construction. China Weld

This work is supported by Project of Zhejiang Education Department
(Y201737752).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.rinp.2018.12.054.
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