On Microstructural and Mechanical Behaviour Evolution of High Carbon Steel Welds

High carbon steels are widely used in structural and railway applications owing to their higher hardness and wear resistance, however high carbon steels are more difficult to weld than low and medium carbon steels due to its high hardness because of the martensitic phase transformation during welding resulting in embrittlement and crack formation. The present work aims at studying and co-relating the microstructural changes at the microscopic scale with macroscopic mechanical behaviour changes and assessing the influence of the welding parameters on the microstructural evolution. The work also studies the effect of varied heat treatment on the microstructural changes and accompanying variation in mechanical behaviour of high carbon steel welds. The associated microstructural changes such as grain size and examination of phases present in the weld metal and the heat affected zone has been carried to analyse the microstructural evolution.