Influence of SAW Flux Ingredients on Chemical Compositions of Weldments of Duplex Steel-2205

Duplex stainless steel (DSS) mainly consists of ferrite and austenite. DSS finds wide uses in offshore applications, due to its admirable mechanical properties and great corrosion resistance. The chemical and physical characteristics of the weld metal (WM) are significantly impacted by the flux compositions. In the present work, the submerged arc welding (SAW) of DSS was achieved by using an electrode wire (ER-308L). The resulting physiochemical compositions, C, Mn, Ni, Cr, Mo and W of the WM, have been examined by utilizing 21 designed fluxes. The SAW fluxes in the current study are formulated using the limited mixture design approach. Using the extreme vertices design method, 21 compositions of flux are designed and the effect of flux mixtures has been studied. Regression models were developed for the submerged arc weld of DSS-2205 by considering the different flux constituents and their binary combinations. From the study, it has been concluded that among the individual flux mixtures, Al₂O₃ is the most significant mixture and SiO₂ is the second most significant flux mixture. The most significant binary mixture to change the content of WM’s composition is SiO₂MgO. Regression mathematical models have been checked at a 95% significance level by using an analysis of variance (F test).