PREHEAT

The purpose of preheat:-

1. Reduce the risk of hydrogen cracking

2. Reduce the hardness of the weld heat affected zone
3. Reduce shrinkage stresses during cooling and improve the distribution of residual stresses.

If preheat is locally applied it must extend to at least 75mm from the weld location
and be preferably measured on the opposite face to the one being welded.

• Got To The Pre-Heat Calculator

Background To Preheating
When hydrogen diffusing from a solidified weld meets a hard microstructure under
a tensile stress a crack is likely!
Hydrogen cracking normally occurs in the heat affected zone where hard
microstructure is to be found, occasionally it can occur in weld metal.

Hydrogen
This is a very searching gas that can be liberated by oil, grease, rust etc. and
water under the right conditions.
The greatest risk comes from hydrogen generated within the arc from damp or
contaminated welding consumables, mainly fluxes or electrode coatings.
Contamination on the parent metal can also be a risk unless the heat from the
welding arc can drive it away. Moisture from condensation on the parent metal
will normally be driven off by the heat from the arc before it can get into the weld
pool.
Hydrogen in the atmosphere is unlikely to penetrate the arc envelope unless
welding is carried out in very damp and humid conditions.
A hydrogen crack can take anything from a few hours to 24 hours to occur. After 24
hours cracking is still possible but less likely, although there have been some
reported cases of cracking at 72 hours. It is therefore good practice to allow at
least 48 hours before carrying out any NDE.
Hydrogen will eventually disperse from the parent metal, within a few days at
room temperature or a few hours if held at around 200°C.
Hydrogen cracking is only possible at room temperature, this is why it is also
referred to as cold cracking

Parent Metal
A hydrogen crack requires a hard microstructure which is created by a hardenable
material subject to fast cooling from 800°C to 500°C. Cooling can be slowed down
by:-

• applying preheat,
• maintaining a high interpass temperature,
 • increasing welding power and reducing travel speed.

The heat sink caused by the parent metal thickness and the number of available
paths the heat can take to escape, also influence cooling rate. (However once the
heat sink reaches a certain size further increases have a negligible effect on
cooling rate.). This is why when determining preheat the term combined thickness
is used, for a butt weld it is twice the thickness of the parent material and for a T
fillet weld three times the thickness.
The hardening of a carbon manganese steel/low alloy steel is influenced primarily
by carbon content and to a lesser extent other constituents such as manganese,
chrome, silicone etc.
The Carbon Equivalent is a formula used to express the harden-ability of a
particular alloy steel in terms of an equivalent plain carbon steel. Several such
formula exist, the one favoured for low alloy steel is the IIW formula:
CEIIW = C + Mn/6 + (Cr + Mo + V)/5 + (Ni + Cu)/15
Current steel specification do not restrict or limit the Carbon Equivalent and as
most steel specs permit a wide range of composition it is possible that one batch of
steel may require pre-heat and another may not.
Very low sulphur ( < 0.015%) will increase hardening and special precautions are
required when determining the minimum preheat level. Additions of niobium also
require special consideration.
For welds subject to high restraint more preheat is advisable (suggest, Increase CE
by 0.3 or go down one hydrogen scale).
References.
EN1011 Part 2 (English version available from British Standards)
This standard is highly recommended as it gives details on this preheat method
and also includes methods covering fine grain and creep resisting steels. It also
includes practical guidance on the avoidance of other cracking mechanisms. Much
of the data contained in this standard comes from TWI research tempered by
practical experience from industry. (It replaces BS5135)
Welding Steels Without Hydrogen Cracking. http://www.woodhead-
publishing.com/
This book is based on the original research work carried out by TWI. It covers the
avoidance of hydrogen cracking and preheat in great detail. The preheat graphs
tend to require a higher preheat than the equivalent ones in EN1011.
The Welding of Structural Steels Without Preheat The Welding Journal
April 2000
A very informative article covering recent TWI research into welding low
hardenability steels without preheat. The article won the Lincoln arc welding
foundation gold award.
Preheat calculator Lincoln arc welding foundation
A simple to use and inexpensive calculator. It is based on practical experience and
tends to be very conservative when compared with the TWI method.

Got To The Pre-Heat Calculator

More information on Preheat from the Lincoln Arc Foundation
Pre-heat Calculator
Pre-Heat Calculator to EN1011 Part 2 - Non Alloyed And Low Alloy Steels.
Information on how to use this page

• Heat Input
Enter Arc Energy KJ/mm OR
Select Welding Process
Heat Input KJ/mm = Note, this box is not for data input.
• Carbon Equivalent
Enter Carbon Equivalent OR
• Hydrogen Scale
Select Hydrogen Scale
• Combined Thickness
Enter Combined Thickness mm Note Thickness must be 2 x T for a butt weld
• Calculate Pre-Heat
Min Pre-Heat Temperature= °C

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Page last updated 13 April 2002