Kawasaki Steel Corporation

Junya Matsuyama

Fumimaru Kawabata

Noboru Nishiyama

Akio Kamada

Tatsufumi Uegaki

Shigeru Miyake

Kouki Sato

A covered arc welding electrode includes a steel core wire and a flux which is applied to the outside periphery of said steel core wire. The welding electrode can form a superior crack-resisting weld zone even if fluctuating stresses are continually applied to a base metal while the base metal is welded. The flux includes 40 to 60% metal carbonate, 10 to 25% metal fluoride and 4 to 25 metal oxide by weight. The flux comprises 24 to 32% of the total weight of said electrode. The composition of the welding electrode includes 0.005 to 0.05% carbon, 0.1 to 1.1% silicon, 1.5 to 2.5% manganese, not more than 0.007% sulfur and not more than 0.25% nickel by weight and the manganese/sulfur ratio is more than or equal to 350 to 1. In addition, the welding electrode can include 0.01 to 0.10% rare earth metal by weight. In which case, the Mn content may be 1.0 to 2.5% by weight and the manganese/sulfur ratio may be more than or equal to 270 to 1. In addition, the composition of the welding electrode can include titanium and zirconium, the total content of which may be less than or equal to 1.2% the total weight of the electrode, and/or aluminum and magnesium, the total content of which may be less than or equal to 1.2% of the total weight of the electrode.

Covered arc-welding electrode

An improved welding method for welding an inner seam of a longitudinally welded steel pipe along an inner groove by welding electrodes held by a boom which is supported by a tracing roller moving along the inner groove of the steel pipe. According to the invention, at least one metal plate is urged against at least one end of the steel pipe after tack welding the seam on an opposite side of the inner groove of the steel pipe to be welded. Lateral angular deformations of the end of the steel pipe are prevented on both sides of the seam. Such deformations are due to the load of the boom when the tracing roller leaves the end of the steel pipe for the metal plate. Thus, the invention provides for prevention of hot cracking at the end of the pipe. Moreover, according to the invention, portions of the steel pipe on both sides of the distal end of the weld bead, at the end of the pipe, are heated to cause expansion displacements of the heated portions directing toward the center of the weld bead, or high temperature portions of the steel pipe, after a heat source for the seam welding has passed therethrough, are cooled, thereby reducing tearing forces acting upon the weld bead so as to prevent more effectively the hot cracking at the end of the pipe.

Steel pipe welding method

Growing community of inventors

Yotsukaido, Japan

Junya Matsuyama