Tag Archives: hardness

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Steps to determine if welding preheat can be eliminated?

Testing the effects of preheat in small parts and assuming it will be the same on large sections is a mistake.

As discussed in our previous article, and many times in the last 50 or so, preheat is necessary in steel welding to control the cooling rate.  More specifically, preheat is used to slow the cooling rate down in order to prevent excessive hardness in the heat affected zone (HAZ) which  can lead to cracking.   Before […]

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How to Weld Quenched and Tempered Steels

It is often incorrectly assumed that quenched and tempered (Q&T) steels are hard to weld or even completely unweldable.  This assumption is inaccurate as most Q&T steels have great weldability.  However, extreme care must be taken to prevent cracking or loss of certain mechanical properties.  A very common quenched and tempered steel is ASTM A514.  […]