Welding Defects: Types, Causes, and Remedies (With PDF

& QUIZZES)
learnmechanical.com/welding-defects

May 12,
2019

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Hello, this is Amrit here, in today’s article I will talk about the Welding Defects.

As we already know welding is a vast topic, there are countless books are written on
welding, so imagine how important the topic is!

Don’t worry I classified welding defects into some basic parts, and it is enough for your
diploma or any undergraduate studies.

Below is the article, where I mentioned the types of welding defects with their causes
and remedies. I have written the topic in very easily understand language as well as I
attach a PDF file of this article so that after reading you can download the PDF for your
offline studies.

Today's Topics:

What is Welding Defects?

Welding defects are generated in a welding job due to the faulty or poor technique used
by the inexperienced or unskilled welder or due to fundamental difficulties in the welding
operation.

An ideal weld or good weld should be such that adequate fusion exists between the
filler metal and edge preparation together with good penetration.

Types of Welding Defects:

Welding defects are broadly classified into two categories, and those are:

External welding defects (Defects occur on the upper surface of the welded
work).
Internal welding defects (Defects occur under the surface of the welded work).

Now External welding defects are classified into the following types:

Incorrect profile (Welding is not done properly).

Crater (A large Cavity occurs where electrode sparks continuous on a single point).
Cracks.
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 Spatter and surface porosity ( On the welded parts there some drops occur).
Incomplete filled groove (Not filled completely).
Distortion (This occurs were not welded properly).

and Internal welding defects are classified into the following category:

Blowholes and internal porosity.

Cracks.
Inclusions.
Lack of fusion.
Incomplete fusion.

Crack form in Welding (Source: By Wizard191 – Own work, CC

BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?
curid=8678506)

Several Welding Defects

These are the few Welding Defects Causes and Remedies:

Below I mentioned the welding defects with remedies.

Incomplete Penetration:
Incomplete penetration occurs when the Depth of the welded joint is insufficient.

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Penetration is defined as the distance from the base plate top surface to the maximum
extent of the weld nugget.

Causes of Incomplete penetration:

Improper joints.
Too large root face, root gape, and bevel gear.
Wrong hold position of the electrode.
Too large electrode diameter and longer arc length.
Less arc current and faster arc travel speed.
Incorrect polarity while welding with DC.

Remedies of Incomplete penetration:

Increasing the heat input.
Reducing travel speed during welding.
Ensuring that the surface to be joint fit properly.
Changing the joint design.

Inclusion:
This is maybe in the form of slag or any other foreign material, which does not get a
chance to float on the surface of the solidifying weld metal and thus gets entrapped
inside the same.

Inclusion lowers the strength of the joint and makes it weaker.

Causes of Inclusion:
Too high or too low arc current.
Long arc and too large electrode diameter.
The too-small included angle of the joint.
Insufficient chipping and cleaning of previous passes in multipass welding.
Wrongly placed tack welds.

Remedies of Inclusion:
Cleaning the weld bed surface before the next layer is deposited, by means of a
wire brush.
Providing sufficient shielding gases.
Redesigning the joint so as to permit sufficient space for proper manipulation of
the puddle of molten weld metals.

Porosity and Blowholes:

Porosity is a group of small voids and blowholes are comparatively bigger isolated holes
or cavities.
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They are mainly generated due to entrapped gases.

Causes of Porosity and Blowholes:

Use of improper electrode and longer arc
faster arc travel speed.
Too low and too high arc currents.
Due to gas entrapment during solidification of the weld.
Unclean job surface i.e. presence of scales, rust, oil, and grease, etc on the surface
of the job.

Remedies of Porosity and Blowholes:

Proper selection of electrode and filler materials.
Improve welding techniques such as preheating of the weld area or an increase in
the rate of heat input.
Reducing welding speed to allow time for gas to escape.
Proper cleaning and the prevention of contaminants from entering the weld zone.

Spatter:
Spatter is the small metal particles that are thrown out of the arc during welding and get
deposited on the base metal around the weld bead along its length.

Causes of Spatter:
Excessive arc current.
Use of longer arc, damp electrodes.
Electrode being coated with improper flux ingredients.
Due to the expansion of gas bubbles entrapped in the molten globules of metal.

Remedies of Spatter:
Use proper arc current to weld, arc length, fresh electrodes.
Use of AC power to reduce arc blow.

Distortion:
Distortion is the change in the shape and difference between the position of two plates
before and after welding due to the temperature gradient present at various points
along the joints.

In general, we can say that distortion is due to unequal expansion and contraction of the
weld metal and all kinds of distortion increase with the volume of metal deposited.

Distortion of the weldment can be divided into three types:

1. Longitudinal shrinkage (Occurs Parallel to the weld lines).

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 2. Transverse shrinkage (Perpendicular).
3. Angular shrinkage (rotation around the weld lines).

Causes of Distortion:
A great number of passes with small diameter electrodes.
Slow arc travel speed.
High residual stresses in the plate to be welded.
Using improper welding sequences.

Remedies of Distortion:
Use the proper amount of weld metal as per the requirement of the joint. It will
reduce the contraction forces.
Use an appropriate number of weld passes.
Place the weld near the neutral axis.
Use proper welding sequences.

Also, there are other remedies to prevent distortion, those are:

Reduce the welding time so that too

great a volume surrounding metal
cannot be expanded.
While the large weldments into sub-
assemblies.
Peening should be done to remove
the shrinkage force during or after
welding.
If needed you can use a vernier
caliper to take the perfect
measurement frequently, so that
dimensional accuracy will be
accurate.

Undercut Welding defects:

An undercut is a kind of weld defect which forms a groove in the parent metal along
with the sides of the weld bead.

Groove reduces the thickness of the plate and also reduces the strength of the weld.

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 Under Cut

Causes of Undercut:
Wrong manipulation and inclination of an electrode and excessive weaving.

Too large electrode diameter.

Longer arc.
Faster arc travel speed.
Magnetic arc blow.
Higher current.

Remedies of Undercut:
Use proper arc current, electrodes.
Weaving should be proper and as per the requirement.
Use proper arc travel speed.

Hot Tear Welding defects:

In this welding defect, the deposited metal being hot starts developing crack from the
nearby edge so that after it has been solidified the crack increase.

The hot tear is also known as solidification cracking, due to tearing of the grain
boundaries of weld metal before complete solidification has taken place and metal is still
in the plastic state.

Causes of Hot tear:

Improper selection of proper materials.
Welding current is not proper.

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 Improper electrode thickness.

Remedies of Hot tear:

Select the proper electrode material.
Welding current should be optimum as per the requirement.
Electrode thickness should be optimum and according to the base metal to be
welded.

You may be interested to read these articles on weldings:

Arc welding Machine: Types and Parts

Gas welding: Definition, types, and equipments
TIG Welding: Parts and Working Principle
Resistance Welding: Parts and Working
Plasma Arc Welding Machine
Sub-merged arc Welding

Here is the video on actual welding defects:

Video Source: Weld.com

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 Video Source: Weld.com

Let’s play a Quiz on Welding Defects:

99
Created on October 23, 2019 By Saswata Baksi
Quiz on Welding Defects

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Spatter formed because of:

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What are the remedies of Incomplete penetration?

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Welding defects are broadly classified into:

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What causes bad welding?

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5/5

What are the common welding defects?

Your score is

The average score is 68%

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Little Summary:
What is Welding Defects?
Welding defects are generated in a welding job due to the faulty or poor technique used
by the inexperienced or unskilled welder or due to fundamental difficulties in the welding
operation.

What are the different types of welding defects?

Weldings defects are classified into the following types: Incorrect profile, Crater,
Cracks, Spatter and surface porosity, Incomplete filled groove, Distortion, Blowholes, and
internal porosity, Cracks, Inclusions, Lack of fusion, Incomplete fusion.

Conclusion:
In the field of mechanical engineering, you may hear about welding quite a few times. It
is one of the permanent joints that we use.

Today we have covered the welding defects and we saw the causes of welding and
also know how to prevent the welding defects as well.

Now I want to hear from you. If you like my article do share with your friends and also on
your social handles. And If you have any doubts you can comment down below your
doubts, or whatever you wanna tell me. I love to hear your opinion and suggestions.

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our community, here is the link of our Facebook group. So, Cheers, and enjoy the
rest of your day.

Also, I wrote an article on parts, types, and operations Lathe Machine and also parts,
types and operation of Shaper Machine you may be interested to read that too.

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Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welding
http://www.vizzion.cl/files/CarrascoMery_MEVAL.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0963869502000257

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