A Decade of Progress in Underwater Wet Welding Using the SMAW Process (1990-2003)

It is well established that underwater wet welding (UWW) offers significant cost savings over other repair techniques for submerged structures such as petroleum production platforms, ships, and piers. Due to the deleterious effect of increased pressure on weld quality, innovative consumables are required for the production of quality wet welds. Manganese was added to the electrode coating to replenish its loss from the weld pool. Titanium and boron were added to control the molten metal oxygen potential and refine the as-solidified and reheated weld metal microstructure. Rare-earth metals (REM) were added to control the weld metal oxygen content. Finally, weld metal nickel content was optimized to improve impact toughness. Selected results of these approaches are presented in this work. These recent developments clearly demonstrate that it is possible to achieve significant progresses in wet welding using shielded metal arc (SMA) consumables, if these are designed following sound metallurgical principles.