Weldability of Cast Iron With Three Electrodes of High Nickel Weldability of Cast Iron With Three Electrodes of High Nickel

Jose Luddey Marulanda Arevalo, Mauricio Escobar, Gabriel Castao.
WELDABILITY OF CAST IRON WITH THREE ELECTRODES OF HIGH NICKEL

Jose Marulanda, Ingeniero Metalrgico, M. Sc. ProfesorAsistente jlmarulanda@utp.edu.co;
MauricioEscobar, Ingeniero Mecnico; GabrielCastano, IngenieroMecnico
Universidad Tecnolgica de Pereira.
Abstract:
The cast iron has a common problem that significantly affects weldability; the large amount of carbon they hold.
The extent of this cracking is directly dependent on the type of cast iron, welding conditions and post weld heat
treatment. This work seeks to provide a guideline on the use of electrodes with high nickel for cast iron; these
electrodes were tested on different types of cast iron, with different characteristics and properties. The procedures
used for the application of the welding for cast iron are based on application manuals and tips made by different
manufacturers. The mechanical test results demonstrated that the electrode of better performance and quality, of
the three used electrodes is the electrode 3.
INTRODUCTION
The cast iron are alloys of iron and carbon, where the
percentage of carbon is between 2.08 and 6.67%, with
amounts of silicon from 1 to 4%, manganese up to
1% with low sulfur and phosphorus, where carbon
can be in the form of graphite with different formats
or forming carbides such as cementite. However, the
relationship between carbon and silicon, mainly
called carbon equivalent, allows to obtain in these
materials a total content of these two elements close
to 4.26 ( eutectic point in the diagram Fe-C). Thus,
when the carbon content is higher than it allows the
relationship of carbon equivalent, cast iron with a
great fragility are obtained, for that reason, most of
these commercial cast iron containing a quantity of
carbon between 2.5 and 4%. (Marulanda, 2007; Mesa,
2003)
The best way to classify the cast iron is based on their
metallographic structure. By studying the different
types must consider four variables that significantly
influence its formation, namely the content of carbon,
the content of alloying elements and impurities, the
cooling rate during and after solidification and heat
treatment receive later. These variables determine the
condition and physical form of carbon. Carbon can be
found in combination with the iron in the form of
Journal of Engineering and Technology
cementite or free in the form of graphite. The shape

and distribution of free carbon particles has greatly
influence the physical and mechanical properties of
the cast iron. The different types of them are white
cast iron, cast iron, nodular cast iron, die casting and
cast iron alloyed. (Horwitz, 1997)
WELDING CONCEPTS
Welding is a process that involves many phenomena

including metal fusion, phase transformations during
solidification, phase transformations in solid-state,
deformation caused by heat, grain growth, diffusion
and shrinkage stress, which can cause many practical
problems. These problems can be minimized and
solved being applied appropriate metallurgical
principles to this process. During a welding process,
the heating is localized and there is no uniformity in
the temperature of the piece, well, different shapes
and geometries of the pieces, make it possible
distortion of this, because, as is solidified the weld it
contracts, generating stresses in this and the heat
affected zone. These stresses are responsible for
causing the distortion or premature rupture of the
piece in the weld area. This stresses can be eliminated
or reduced by thermal or mechanical treatments.
Techniques such as preheating, post-heating, stress
relief and hammered, look for, besides maintaining
57

the properties of the base metal, that the piece at the
end of the weld process stays with the original size
and shape, avoiding distortions, residual stresses, the
appearance of fragile phase, cracking, among many
other problems that may occur during the welding
operation. (Sager 2004; Eutecti-Castolin 2002)
WELDABILITY
The weldability term relates to all aspects of welding

that it must have the metal to produce a good weld
and do not affect the mechanical properties of heat
affected zone. The materials may have good
weldability, under a set of specific conditions, but it
can lower weldability if these conditions change. To
produce a good weld should be improved weldability,
given a good design of the joint, a good selection of
filler metal, preheating and postheating, having a
good control of heat input and its dissipation during
the welding process, because otherwise have a good
handle on the above parameters can be found welding
defects. (Marulanda et al, 2007)
The weldability of the cast iron is determined by the
metallurgical properties of the base metal, chemical
composition and heat treatments, as well as the size
and shape of the piece, the filler metal and welds
metal sensitivity to dilution with heterogeneous base
metals. The dilution is carried out by mixing the filler
metal and base metal. If the weld metal cannot
tolerate the mixture of base metal, there is little
weldability, where the percentage of dilution of the
weld metal depends on the heat input, welding
process and the configuration of the joint. When the
base metal cannot withstand the heating and cooling
cycles imposed by the welding, the cracks appear and
says that the material has low weldability. Moreover
when the metallurgical characteristics of the weld
metal and base material are undesirable with respect
to weldability, these can be corrected using adequate
protection with shielding gases, fluxes specific for
filler metal, welding process and in some cases with
heat treatments of preheating and post-heating.
(Clever, 2004)
When welding a cast iron, the last cover pass should

be deposited so that the liquid metal produced by the
arc does not touch the metal base and the join takes
place by the previously deposited metal. With this
technique, the heat affected zone undergoes a
tempering and the material improves its toughness.
Therefore it is important to control the amount of heat
supplied to the welding, since any excess heat
produced an increase in the width of the heat affected
zone and thereby increase the structural changes that
can lead to embrittlement of the weld. Figure 1 shows
the welding as applied in this work. (Houldcroft,
1990)
Figure 1. Schematics of the application of the weld.
When the piece is preheated, the welds are softer and

less fragile, but welding is more difficult. During the
execution of the welding the piece should be kept to
the preheating temperature and this temperature
depends on the configuration, shape and size of the
piece. The greater the thickness and / or complexity
of the workpieces, the more care must be taken to
avoid high cooling rates that can lead to cracking of
the weld or base metal. Generally, the electrodes used
for welding cast irons produce heterogeneous welds,
since the chemical composition of weld metal is
different from the composition of base metal, where
the application of a particular type of electrode, has a
great influence on the final result. The selection of a
cast-iron welding electrode can go from steel to
nickel alloys including monel alloys (70% Ni - 30%
Cu) and stainless steels. The most common electrodes
for welding cast iron are the core of nickel, because it
58

prevents cracking by the appearance of hard and
brittle phases, these electrodes also have a high
elongation that can withstand expansion and
contraction during the welding process and
furthermore is machinable. The electrodes that should
be selected have the lower heat input and those
working at lower amperage. When a cast iron is
welded with preheating, shows a decrease in the
proportion of cementite in the join area and a
significant improvement in the appearance of the
weld. When a cast iron is welded without preheating
with steel electrodes, the transformation into
cementite junction zone is accentuated and the fused
zone is composed almost entirely of a martensitic
structure. The welding with electrode of nickel or
monel, gives better results, achieving a significant
improvement in the join due to the influence of nickel
to produce graphite. All iron castings are considered
weldable, but in smaller degree than carbon steel and
except the cast iron white, because it has low ductility
and is not able to absorb the thermal stress generated
in the base metal to welded.
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE
For the selection of base metal, were chosen parts that

were flat, continuous and adequate thickness in order
to prepare the samples to run the tests and that they
comply with the conditions described in the
standards. The piece of iron grills now on be named
(material 1), chassis (material 2) and the sewer cover
(material 3). The results of the characterization of
materials are seen in Tables 1.
Table 1. Chemical composition of materials.
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION OF MATERIALS. ( % Weight)
C
Si
P
Mo Cr
Mn Fe
V
MATERIAL
3
2,06 0,12 0,14 0,39 0,79 93,73 0,06
1
MATERIAL
2,68 1,94 0,37 0,02 0,08 0,22 94,7 0,05
2
MATERIAL
3,67 1,52 1,19 0,4 0,16 0,15 92,2 0,05
3
The selection of the electrodes was based on 3

different brands of electrodes with high nickel
content, which can weld cast iron. With properly
sized and beveled specimens, it proceeded to the
application of welding. For the application of the
weld had to be a thorough cleaning to eliminate any
foreign agent. Direct current (DC) is working with the
positive pole in the energy source to avoid high heat
inputs. The amperage was selected by the welder to
their comfort, but under the recommendations of each
manufacturer of welding. The applications of the
weld between plates are made as follows:
* The plates of the material base were placed on a
press fixes and a support are above the two plates
come together to prevent separation between them.
* After having correctly positioned both plates apply
a spot weld to both sides to prevent misalignment in
the material and removed the slag welds.
* It began with the root pass; this was done in smooth
waveform with alternating strings, as shown in Figure
1. The root pass is beginning of one end, moving
toward the center and with a length of 1 inch. After
the slag was removed and cleaned with a brush, wait
a period of approximately 2 minutes. One went to the
other side and proceeded to apply the second root
pass in the same way as the first. The third root pass
was applied to advance the side that was applied first
to the second root pass with the same parameters that
were applied to two other root pass.
* Then was made the cover weld in the same way that
was applied the root pass, this weld was used in the
same wave weld technique but with a little more
oscillation amplitude. It was necessary to apply the
hammer to relief stresses caused by the heating of the
piece. For certain combinations of electrode piece it
was necessary to vary the amperage between the root
pass and cover weld. In table 2, shows the amperage
used in the application of fillet welds.
59

Table 2. Amperage used in the application of the
weld of the three materials
Electrode
1
Electrode
2
Electrode
3
Electrode
1
Electrode
2
Electrode
3
Electrode
1
Electrode
2
Electrode
3
Material 1
Root pass
Cover pass
130 A
110 A
125 A
125 A
110 A
Material 2
Root pass
110 A
105 A
115 A
160 A
160 A
115 A
Material 3
Root pass
115 A
120 A
145 A
115 A
145 A
115 A
145 A
Cover pass
Cover pass
* After proceeded to take the samples according to

the distribution as shown in Figure 2. Two specimens
were taken for the tensile test, two for charpy and two
for metallography and hardness, for each plate
welded and without weld. It was mechanized and
dimensions of the specimen for tensile test were made
strictly under the parameters mentioned in ASTM E801. The procedure of preparing the specimen for
Charpy testing was done strictly under the parameters
of ASTM E-23[11]. To reveal the microstructure in
the fillet weld, metallographic tests were performed
under standard ASTM E3-01, also proceeded to make
the Brinell hardness test under standard ASTM E-1098 and making the indentation marks around the
perimeter of the fillet weld, starting from 4mm side
and moving to the center of the weld.
Figure 2. Dimensions and distribution of specimens
in the cast iron plates with and without welding.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The samples in delivery state disclose the needleshaped graphite, shows that the parts are cast iron.
The Charpy test was performed to the cast iron plates
with and without welding. It is possible to observe
that apparently the material 2 is the best material
impact resistance, then the material 3 and finally the
material 1. This test was a guide to deduct the
increase in the tenacity that had each material with
each of the applied welds. The results of the Charpy
test are seen in Tables 3.
Table 3. Energy absorbed by the 3 materials in the
Charpy test with weld and without weld.
Energy
absorbed
( N/m)
Without Electrode 1 Electrode 2 Electrode 3

weld
Material 1
0,7661
2,927
1,2557
4,656
Material 2
0,5675
0,3248
1,2731
1,9057
Material 3
1,1456
8,868
1,9479
3,3294
According to the results, the toughness behavior of

the three materials with weld with electrode 3 is
observed an increase in the toughness of the material
with respect to its state without weld. Taking
into account that the material 1 was used with
lower amperage to the application of the root pass and
60

cover weld with electrode 3 with respect to the other
two, allowing a low heat input, which
could affect material at this mechanical property. It
shows clearly that the material 3 assimilates
remarkably well this type of welding, increasing its
impact resistance properties in an excellent manner.
According to the results, it shows clearly that the
material 3 apparently assimilates remarkably well this
type of welding, increasing its impact resistance
properties in an excellent manner.
In agreement with the hardness tests, it is observed
that when moving towards the center of the specimen
from one end, the hardness increases in the heat
affected zone (HAZ) until the perimeter, where the
welding begins and the hardness low, since the filler
material has a lower hardness. In Figure , it can see
that the area most affected by the heat input was
(HAZ), since before applying to the weld it has lower
hardness. Also note that this apparently so
pronounced hardness gradient in this material is not
suitable because the difference in hardness is
proportional to the change of microstructure in the
affected area is not desired in any material. The weld
has a similar hardness at the center for the three
materials, but varies widely in heat affected zone.
Figure 3. Brinell hardness for welded materials with
electrode 3.
It performed the tensile test to find the breaking

strength of each material, since this property may say
something about the weldability of materials with
respect to each of the welds. In Table 4 are data from
tensile tests for the three welded materials and
without welding. For a material without applying
welding, the most resistant material to the tensile load
it were material 3, which contained the most carbon,
but was the most alloying, allowing it to be the best
result, here it was found that the casting material not
only depends on the amount of carbon it have,
furthermore alloying elements it contains. It is clear
that the material works best with this type of welding
was the material 3, which confirms the good
performance was also this material in the impact test.
Material 2 did not have good behavior to the tensile
stress with the electrode 1 and 3, since there was no a
good fusion in this type of weld with the material
base. According to the results can be deduced that the
material 2 is not well accepted welding electrodes 1
and 3, or it may be that the parameters with which to
apply this type of welding was not the most
appropriate, although it followed all the parameters
given by the weld manufacturers.
Table 4. Tensile test for the 3 materials with weld and
without weld.
Tensile stress
(kg f)
Without
welding
Electrode
1
Electrode
2
Electrode
3
Material 1
900
845
150
1785
Material 2
1280
95
1460
580
Material 3
1540
1575
765
1055
For the welding with electrode 1, material 3 was the

best to this kind of welding. The welding with
electrode 2 works best with the material 2 and the
welding with electrode 3 work well with the material
1. All welds had a good performance for these
materials, which means that this type of welding is
good with the parameters used on a type cast iron
with these features, but for the material 2 is not fuse
well with the welding electrode 1. According to the
61

results obtained can be defined the welding with
electrode 2 as the lowest quality among the three
electrodes, although this had a good performance on
the material 2. It is possible to be said that the
material 1 and 3 have a good weldability and material
2 is the weakest weldability for welding of all three
electrode used.
CONCLUSIONS
* Although there were consistent results and very

good weldability for each of the cast iron using coldpass, it is recommended to use a preheating to
improve the fusion between the base material and
filler material, since the base material preheating
decreases the cooling rate of the weld and minimizes
or eliminates the risk of formation of hard and brittle
structures, especially in the heat affected zone. In
addition the weld solidifies with less stress because
contraction has been more uniform.
* The presence of steadite in the cast iron can
increase the tensile strength, but keep in mind that in
turn reduces ductility, toughness and machinability,
so in cases that require an element or part that is
subjected to repetitive impacts, cast iron should not
be used with high phosphorus content, or the
electrode 2, for repair or welded joint.
* The identification of a hardness gradient from the
heat affected zone until the joint to the center of the
weld, can demonstrate a proper assimilation of the
base material with the electrode.
* The electrode 3 performance is better and high
quality also has a high rank of use and it is
recommended that when does not know the
characteristics and composition of the material being
welded, the electrode 3 is used for its ability to
assimilate to any type of cast iron.
REFERENCES
Metal casting and Molding Processes, American

Foundry men's Society, 1991.
J.L. Marulanda, A. Zapata, and D. Mesa.
Recuperacin y soldabilidad de fundicin de hierro.
Scientia et technica. Vol 37. 2007
ASM HANDBOOK Vol.15. Casting. United States
of America. 9 ed. ASM International, 1992. 937 p.
American Society for Metals. Metals Handbook
Volume 2, Welding process. American Society for
Metals. Metals Park, 1978.
P. Houldcroft. Tecnologa de los procesos de
soldadura. Ediciones CEAC S.A. Barcelona
Espaa. 1990.
O. J. Gmez, Soldadura de Metales. Universidad
Industrial de Santander. 1993.
H. Horwitz, Soldadura Aplicaciones y prctica.
Editorial Alfaomega. Bogota Colombia. 1997.
Electromanufacturas S.A. Manual de Soldadura,
Electromanufacturas. Bogot. 2006.
Dairo. Mesa, Fundiciones. Universidad Tecnolgica
de Pereira. 2003.
F. Cleber. Metalurgia da soldagem, Basic Welding
Filler Metal Technology ESAB Welding and
Cutting Products, 2004.
J.L. Marulanda, A. Zapata, and D. Mesa,
Fundamentos de la soldadura de metales. Universidad
Tecnolgica de Pereira. 2007.
Zapata. Alberto. Manual tcnico de soldadura, Sin
Publicar.
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Indura s.a, Sistemas y materiales de soldadura, Indura
2009.
EUTECTIC CASTOLIN, Manual de soldadura,

Eutectic Castolin, Bogot 2002.
SAGER S.A. Manual de soldadura, SAGER, Cali.

2008.
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Weldability of Cast Iron With Three Electrodes of High Nickel Weldability of Cast Iron With Three Electrodes of High Nickel

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Jose Luddey Marulanda Arevalo, Mauricio Escobar, Gabriel Castao.