US 2016/0355902 A1Published application

Welding method and system

AssigneeGM Global Technology Operations LLC

InventorsDavid Yang, Jing Zhang, Li Sun, Blair E. Carlson

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Abstract

A welding method includes the following steps: (a) determining a martensite tempering temperature of the at least two workpieces based, at least in part, on the chemical composition and microstructure of the woworkpieces; (b) applying sufficient energy to the workpieces to melt the workpieces at a target location, thereby creating a weld pool; (c) determining, via the control module, a target temperature and cooling range of a coolant and cooling range based, at least in part, on the martensite tempering temperature and HAZ width; and (d) cooling the first and second workpieces with the coolant such that a temperature of the workpieces at heat-affected zones is controlled below the martensite tempering temperature in order to minimize softening at the heat-affected zones. The present invention also relates to a welding system for minimizing HAZ softening.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A welding method, comprising:

determining, via a control module, a martensite tempering temperature of at least two workpieces based, at least in part, on a chemical composition of the at least two workpieces;
applying sufficient energy to the at least two workpieces to melt the at least two workpieces at a target location, thereby creating a weld pool, the target location being located at an interference between the at least two workpieces;
determining, via the control module, a target temperature of a coolant based, at least in part, on the martensite tempering temperature the at least two workpieces;
and
cooling the at least two workpieces with the coolant such that a temperature of the at least two workpieces at heat-affected zones is controlled below the martensite tempering temperature in order to minimize softening at the heat-affected zones, wherein each heat-affected zone is an area of the at least two workpieces around the weld pool subjected to heat stemming from the energy applied to the at least two workpieces at the target location.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.