TANDEM and GMAW Twin Wire Welding of Q690 Steel Used in Hydraulic Support

Compared with using semi-automatic gas shielded arc welding, using automatic TANDEM twin wire welding and twin wire gas metal arc welding (GMAW) to weld Q690 steel, a low-alloy high-strength structural steel used in the hydraulic support in the fully-mechanized mining face, the welding speed, deposition rate, production environment and welding quality can be obviously improved. Compared with GMAW twin wire welding, a refined microstructure in the weld and heat-affected zone (HAZ), narrow HAZ and improved joint strength were achieved with TANDEM on Q690. Also, due to the push-pull pulsed way in TANDEM welding, the droplet transfer, distribution on heat flow and interaction between two arcs were completely different from those in GMAW twin wire system. The heat input of TANDEM is only about 766% of GMAW, and correspondingly, the welding speed and welding seam can be obviously improved. The complete oscillation caused by TANDEM pulsed current occurred in the welding pool, which refined the grains in the microstructure. The results show that TANDEM twin wire welding is very suitable in the welding of Q690 used in the hydraulic support.