Studies on fracture toughness of cold wire addition in narrow groove submerged arc welding process

Due to the faster joint completion rates coupled with good mechanical properties, narrow gap submerged arc welding (NGSAW) is widely used for fabrication of thick-walled pressure vessels. Several researchers are working on further increase in productivity in NGSAW. In this paper, we propose to increase the quality and productivity in NGSAW through cold wire addition without addition of heat input. Further toughness at sub-zero temperature is also enhanced. The improvement in toughness in cold wire NGSAW is demonstrated through different tests such as impact energy test, fracture toughness tests, plane strain fracture toughness test K _Ic, and crack tip opening displacement test.