Spatially Resolved Materials Property Data From a Cross-Weld Tensile Test

This work involves the determination of uniaxial stress-strain data from ‘cross-weld’ specimens machined from across a 3 pass welded generic 316 type austenitic stainless steel grooved plate test specimen, using Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI). ESPI has been applied as a novel surface strain mapping tool for measuring the mechanical properties of uniaxial tensile test specimens with heterogenous microstructures. Using this technique, proof stresses have been measured at different distances from the centre of a manual metal arc (MMA) weld, using a single cross-weld specimen. Mechanical properties were measured using cross-weld specimens taken across a first pass and third pass weld bead, thus allowing the effect of subsequent weld passes on a single weld bead to be quantified. Measurements indicate 0.2% proof stress values more than 100 MPa higher in the first pass weld bead compared to the third pass. This is due to the higher levels of accumulated plastic strain in the first pass weld bead, as a result of thermo-mechanical cycling associated with subsequently deposited weld passes.