TWI Industrial Member Report Summary 126/1980
By T G Gooch
Background
An investigation has been carried out into the mechanical properties developed in arc welds in copper-aluminium-iron and copper-aluminium-nickel-iron bronzes. Attention was paid to tensile behaviour and particularly toughness characteristics as assessed by Charpy impact and crack opening displacement
test methods. The work was based on the use of multiphase weld metals deposited by the manual metal arc, TIG and MIG techniques, comparison being made with parent material and heat affected zone (HAZ) properties.
It was found that the tensile properties were in general comparable with those of the parent materials studied and, moreover, exceeded parent material specification minima. Toughness levels recorded for the single phase copper-aluminium-iron parent material were above those for the multiphase copper-aluminium-nickel-iron alloy, although both materials showed loss of toughness in the HAZ of a weld. The toughness levels obtained for weld metals were below those of parent material, especially in deposits made using the manual metal arc process. The results obtained were consistent with the compositions
and microstructures of the various materials examined.