Microstructure and corrosion behavior of multipass gas tungsten arc welded 304L stainless steel

The purpose of this study was to discuss the effect of single pass and multipass (double and triple pass) gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) on microstructure, hardness and corrosion behavior of 304L stainless steel. In this investigation, 308 stainless steel filler metal was used. Microstructures and hardness of the weldments were investigated using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and Vickers microhardness (HV0.5). A ferritescope was also used in the non-destructive evaluation to observe the ferrite content on the weldments. Corrosion behavior of weldments in 1 M H2SO4 solution at 25 ± 1 °C was investigated using potentiodynamic polarization and immersion tests. Results indicated that the microstructure of fusion zones exhibited dendritic structure contained lathy and skeletal δ-ferrite. The contents of δ-ferrite in the weld zone increased by increasing the number of passes. Therefore, as the number of passes increased, the hardness and corrosion resistance increased.