Butt Welding of 2205/X65 Bimetallic Sheet and Study on the Inhomogeneity of the Properties of the Welded Joint

The explosively welded 2205 duplex stainless steel/X65 pipe steel bimetallic sheets were butt jointed by multilayer and multi-pass welding (gas tungsten arc welding for the flyer and gas metal arc welding for the transition and parent layers of the bimetallic sheets). The microstructure and mechanical properties of the welded joint were investigated. The results showed that in the thickness direction, microstructure and mechanical properties of the welded joint exhibited obvious inhomogeneity. The microstructures of parent filler layers consisted of acicular ferrite, widmanstatten ferrite, and a small amount of blocky ferrite. The microstructure of the transition layer and flyer layer consisted of both austenite and ferrite structures; however, the transition layer of weld had a higher volume fraction of austenite. The results of the microhardness test showed that in both weld metal (WM) and heat-affected zone (HAZ) of the parent filler layers, the average hardness decreased with the increasing (from parent filler layer 1 to parent filler layer 3) welding heat input. The results of hardness test also indicated that the hardness of the WM and the HAZ for the flyer and transition layers was equivalent. The tensile test combined with Digital Specklegram Processing Technology demonstrated that the fracturing of the welded joint started at the HAZ of the flyer, and then the fracture grew toward the base metal of the parent flyer near the parent HAZ. The stratified impact test at −5 °C showed that the WM and HAZ of the flyer exhibited lower impact toughness, and the fracture mode was ductile and brittle mixed fracture.