Flash butt resistance welding for duplex stainless steels

Duplex stainless steels were welded using flash butt resistance welding with temperature controlling system. Flash butt resistance welding is consisting of two stage processes of flash action and contact resistance. First stage is flashing action. The specimen produced flashing or arcing across the interface of the two butting ends of the specimens. Fine particles of metals near the surface were burned out towards the opposing surface of the specimen irregularity and then the melted particles were deposited on the surface. The second stage is resistance welding. The solid state bonding was performed in the region around the deposited particles. The cross-sectional microstructure of the weld bond region was observed using microscopy. The microstructure showed two types of a deposited fine particles region and a solid state bonding region. The grain growth was hardly observed in the weld region and the heat-affected zone. The tensile strength and the impact energy increased with increasing heating time up to 1373 K because of increasing fine grained deposited metal. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.