Tribological performance of weld joints fabricated using TIG welding on AISI304L stainless steel

AISI304L stainless steel is an excellent corrosion resistant metal. Owing to this property they are used in applications like nuclear industry, pipelines, food processing etc where the joints are made by welding. In this paper, the tribological performance is investigated on the TIG welded joints of 12 mm thick AISI304L stainless steel plates. The specimens were examined for wear using linear reciprocatory (LRT) and pin-on-disc (POD) tribometers in room temperature under a constant load of 9.81 N for 45 min each. The results of LRT show that the base metal of AISI304L SS exhibited a 5% higher dry sliding wear rate than the weld metal, but the results in POD showed that weld metal wore 45% higher than the base metal. The results indicated that the wear mechanisms and rates varied significantly between the two testing systems, highlighting the importance of testing conditions in evaluating material performance. The welded samples predominantly featured a microstructure of delta ferrite within an austenite matrix, characterized by a vermicular shape due to the primary ferrite mode of solidification.