welding of 304l stainless steel with activated tungsten inert gas process (a-tig)

gas tungsten arc welding is a popular process in those applications requiring a high degree of quality andaccuracy. however, this process has a big disadvantage against the substantially high productivity weldingprocedures. hence, many efforts have been made to improve its productivity. one of these efforts is the use of activating flux (a-tig welding). in this study, the performance of a-tig welding on 304l austenitic stainless steel plates has been presented. two oxide fluxes, tio2 and sio2 were used to investigate the effect of a-tig welding process on weld morphology, microstructure and mechanical properties of weldments. the experimental results indicated that a-tig welding could increase the weld penetration and depth-to-wide ratio. it was also found that a-tig welding could increase the delta-ferrite content of weld metals and improve the mechanical properties. moreover, a 2d axial symmetric model was developed to simulate the flow behavior in the melting pool. these results were compared to those experiments carried out on a stainless steel (304l) melted by a stationary heat source.