Ferritic, martensitic, and precipitation hardening stainless steel laser weldings

Even if many steels and alloys have been welded on the last years, nowadays there are some other stainless steel alloys that need a further comprehension when they have to be welded. Typically these alloys are martensitic and precipitation hardening ones that still present some problems to be weld, i.e. hot cracks, fragile beads, an excessive grain size and other surface defects. In this work some martensitic stainless steels of which a AISI 420B, a AISI 440C and a AISI 630 have been studied. The last one is always with a martensitic structure but, in particular, some interesting mechanical properties are reached by a precipitation hardening process. This research has experimented and studied the mechanical and technological properties of the welds obtained on the above cited AISI 420B, AISI 440C and AISI 630, welded by 1.5 kW CO2 laser. The results have also been compared with the ones obtained on ferritic stainless steels AISI 430 and 430F. A technological characterization of the welds has followed as metallographic tests and evaluations, microhardness, tensile and fatigue tests.