Effect of post-weld heat treatment on mechanical properties and microstructure in electric arc welded mild steel joints

Mechanical and microstructure properties of weld joint between mild steel plates before and after heat treatment process has been studied. In this study, electric arc welding has been used as a welding method as it is the most common method of welding. Then heat treatment of the samples were done in the furnace. Firstly, in the heat treatment process stress annealing was done as stress generated at different places in the welding zone and after that full annealing was done using furnace cooling for cooling purpose. Tensile strength was measured using ASTM A370 standard specimen and Brinell hardness test was done at different surfaces of the welding zone. The microstructures were observed by cutting the specimen in a certain shape and mirror surfaces were generated to observe in electron microscope. From the results, we observed that PWHT causes a 4.1% increase in tensile strength, a 13.84% gain in yield strength, and a 4.96% rise in percentage elongation. However, the value of hardness decreased 19.19% after heat treatment as heat treatment increased the ductility of the specimen. At the place of the Electric Arc Welding joint, a smaller grain size, a lower gap between the grains, and comparatively few voids were identified.