ADVANCED WELDING TECHNOLOGY Electroslag Welding

OPERATING PRINCIPLE

•Electro slag welding is a very efficient, single pass process carried out in the
vertical or near vertical position and used for joining steel plates/sections in
thicknesses of 25mm and above.
•It was developed by the Paton Institute in the Ukraine in the early 1950s and
superseded the very high current submerged arc process for making
longitudinal welds in thick-walled pressure vessels.

•Unlike other high current fusion processes, electro slag welding is not an arc
process.
•Heat required for melting both the welding wire and the plate edges is
generated through a molten slag's resistance to the passage of an electric
current.
ADVANCED WELDING TECHNOLOGY Electroslag Welding
EQUIPMENT

1. Power source 4. Starting block

2. Wire feeder 5. Solid electrode wire
3. Copper shoes 6. Protective equipment
ADVANCED WELDING TECHNOLOGY Electroslag Welding
OPERATION

•In its original form, plates are held vertically approximately 30mm apart with
the edges of the plate cut normal to the surface.
•A bridging run-on piece of the same thickness is attached to the bottom of the
plates.
•Water cooled copper shoes are then placed each side of the joint, forming a
rectangular cavity open at the top.
•Filler wire, which is also the current carrier, is then fed into this cavity, initially
striking an arc through a small amount of flux.
•Additional flux is added which melts forming a flux bath which rises and
extinguishes the arc.
•The added wire then melts into this bath sinking to the bottom before
solidifying to form the weld.
•As welding progresses, both the wire feed mechanism and the copper shoes
are moved progressively upwards until the top of the weld is reached.
ADVANCED WELDING TECHNOLOGY Electroslag Welding
OPERATION
ADVANCED WELDING TECHNOLOGY Electroslag Welding
APPLICATION

1. In the fabrication industry, the process continues to be used for thick

walled pressure vessels and for structures such as blast furnace shells
and steel ladles which are used at above ambient temperatures.
2. The process is also extensively used for the welding of railway points.
3. The main benefits of the process are:
• speed of joint completion; typically 1 hour per metre of seam,
irrespective of thickness
• lack of angular distortion
• simple joint preparation, i.e. flame-cut square edge