Modern welding processes for optimizing repair welding on high-strength offshore steels

The successful energy transition in Germany will require offshore wind turbines with outputs >10 MW in the future, for which high-strength steels with a yield strength of up to 500 MPa and wall thicknesses up to 150 mm are increasingly being used. The repair of weld seams when detecting defects during NDT requires localized gouging and rewelding. This involves high demands on welding manufacturing, especially for high-strength steels. Due to a lack of investigations, there are no repair concepts and information in standards and guidelines, particularly for high-strength thick plate joints made of high-strength offshore steels. However, these are urgently needed to enable processors, especially SMEs, to carry out safe and economical repairs. Therefore, BAM started the FOSTA project P1629 (IGF 01IF22746N) to investigate the stress-optimized repair (local gouging and welding) of high-strength thick plate joints made of offshore grades in the yield strength range off 355 to 460 MPa and similar weld metal with controlled high-performance GMAW processes and optimized narrower gouging grooves. The experimental analyses consider the complex interaction of material, process, and design-related influences on the formation of weld-related stresses and the special microstructure of high-strength fine-grain structural steels. Welding-related material degradation and crack-critical residual tensile stresses need to be avoided to ensure high component safety and performance. With component-related welding experiments on special testing equipment, adapted process and heat control concepts along with variable groove configurations will be developed and recommendations for guidelines elaborated. This is the prerequisite for fully utilizing the strength potential of high-strength steels and making a valuable contribution to the energy transition in Germany, especially for steel-processing SMEs.