Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653

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Materials and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Numerical and experimental investigation on microstructure and

residual stress of multi-pass hybrid laser-arc welded 316L steel
Lin Chen, Gaoyang Mi, Xiong Zhang, Chunming Wang ⁎
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• The post-heating effect of the upper

weld on the lower weld can refine
grain size.
• High cooling rate and carbon segrega-
tion in the re-melting zone formed
feathery ferrite.
• Microstructure inhomogeneity at inter-
layer was demonstrated by simulation
and test.
• The residual stress along weld thickness
was simulated and validated by XRD
method.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In multi-layer welding, the interaction between the weld beads had a great impact on the performance of
Received 14 December 2018 the overall joint. Therefore, experimental research and thermal-plastic analysis of 316L stainless steel
Received in revised form 9 February 2019 multi-layer hybrid laser-arc welding were performed. The reasonable heat sources were proposed to sim-
Accepted 9 February 2019
ulate hybrid laser-arc welding (HLAW) and laser beam welding (LBW). The simulation results of tempera-
Available online 12 February 2019
ture field and residual stress distribution were both validated and in accordance with experimental
Keywords:
measurements. On this basis, Combining the simulated results with the metallurgical analysis, the micro-
Hybrid laser-arc welding structure of multi-layer weld was divided according to temperature histories. The formation mechanism
FE analysis of feathery ferrite precipitated in the re-melting zone (RZ) was analyzed. The feathery ferrite could increase
Microstructure the micro-hardness of the interlaminar position of weld. Moreover, the residual stress along the multi-layer
Residual stress weld thickness direction was simulated and X-ray diffraction (XRD) measured, which indirectly demon-
strated the size and orientation variation of the grains in the RZ.
© 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
Mid-thick austenitic stainless steels have good mechanical proper-
ties and corrosion resistance in some welded structures, such as ship-
building, container manufacturing, bridge manufacturing and other
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lmphust_a@163.com (C. Wang).
industries. Hybrid laser-arc welding (HLAW) can cover the shortage of
single heat source, which enhances the utilization of energy and reduces
the welding defects. Generally, the method of multi-layer HLAW is fit
for mid-thick or thick plates. However, the hybrid laser-arc welding
(HLAW) technology combines the energy of laser welding with arc
welding, which produces higher heat input than single heat source.
Moreover, multi-layer welding makes the welded joint experience mul-
tiple thermal cycles, which results in the complex change of weld stress
and microstructure. The distribution of temperature and stress field

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2019.107653
0264-1275/© 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
2 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653
cannot be clearly observed by the experiment. It is very difficult to ana-
lyze the correlation between non-uniform heating, non-uniform resid-
ual stress and microstructure inhomogeneity only by experiment.
Thus, it is essential to establish the appropriate finite element analysis
model for simulation to perform further investigation and reduce the
time and economic costs.
The experimental and simulated researches on laser-based
welding have been advancing. Zhang et al. [1] used multi-layer
NGHLAW (the narrow-gap hybrid laser-arc welding) technology
for austenitic stainless steel welding. Microstructural inhomogene-
ity along the thickness direction was noticed, and a various solidifi-
cation mode in the FZ was proposed. Liu et al. [2] found that the
multi-pass welding had a heat stack effect, thus HAZ grain coarsen-
ing can be prevented via reducing the heat input. Elmesalamy et al.
[3] compared the GTA and NGLW welding processes for multi-layer
welding of 20 mm thick 316L stainless steel and illustrated that the
residual stress of NGLW was 30–40% lower than GTA by FE analysis
method. The same researchers [4] used experimental and simu-
lated methods to compare the residual stress of ALW and NGLW
for 10 mm thick 316L steel plates, and analyzed the influence of
thermal history and time interval between passes on residual
stress. Chukkan et al. [4] simulated laser welding of 316L stainless
steel with three heat sources, they proposed that 3D conical with
cylindrical shell heat source was the most accurate on the predic-
tion of residual stress and distortion. Rong et al. [5] demonstrated
that the influence of magnetic field on laser welding included ho-
mogenizing the microstructure, angular distortion and residual
stress by numerical simulation and experiment validation. Yaghi
et al. [6] established the post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) numer-
ical model and demonstrated that PWHT could reduce residual
stress effectively. Kong et al. [7] investigated that the residual
stress concentration could be efficiently mitigated with the in-
crease of welding speed by using a developed 3D thermo-elastic-
plastic FEM method.
The numerical modeling by different methods of arc welding and
laser welding was intensively developed recently. A numerical model
integrated finite element analysis with optimization algorithm was
established by Islam et al. [8] and successfully optimized the parameters
of arc welding. Deng and Murakawa [9] presented uncoupled thermal–
mechanical 3D and 2D finite element models based on the ABAQUS soft-
ware to simulate multi-pass welding, and both results matched well
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram: the dimensions of test plate and groove; the angles of welding head and MIG torch.
with the experimental measurements. Abid and Qarni [10] innovatively
applied the double ellipsoid heat source to the circle weld by ABAQUS.
and concluded that high tensile stresses formed during multi-pass
welding was the reason for initiation and growth of cracks. Mi et al.
[11] combined the phase transformation with thermal-metallurgical-
mechanical model to simulate laser welding. Lima et al. [12] predicted
successfully the residual stress generated in the laser welding process
of thin aluminum plates by using SYSWELD. The same analysis software
was used by Yazdian et al. [13] to study the effect of HLAW process on
residual stress of a relative thick plate.
In order to validate the predicted residual stress, X-ray diffrac-
tion technique was applied by many researchers. Song et al. [14]
used polychromatic synchrotron X-ray diffraction method to mea-
sure the residual stresses and had satisfactory agreement with sim-
ulation results. Laboratory XRD Residual Stress Measurement
System was used by Derakhshan et al. [15], Kong et al. [16] and
Sun et al. [17] to measure the welding residual stress in order to
verify the simulation results and qualitative agreements were
achieved.
In conclusion, laser-based welding experimental researches and
numerical simulations have been investigated in previous studies.
However, limited reports have been displayed on the simulation of
multi-layer HLAW, especially few systematical researches were fo-
cused on the interaction between layers since most studies focused
on the influence of the multi-layer welds on the whole welded com-
ponent. In this paper, the thermo-mechanical FE simulation of multi-
layer HLAW of 10 mm 316L stainless steel plate was performed by
using the ANSYS code. The objective of this paper was to reveal the
mechanism of microstructure variation at interlaminar position by
the combination of acceptable simulation results and metallurgy
analysis.
2. Experimental procedure
2.1. Materials and welding system
The dimensions of the two 316L stainless steel plates for butt
welding were 100 × 60 × 10 mm shown in Fig. 1. The filler wire was
1.2 mm-diameter (316LSi). The chemical compositions of base metal
and filler wire were shown in Table 1.
 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653 3

Table 1
Chemical composition of parent metal and welding wire (wt%).

C Mn Si S P Cr Ni Mo

Base metal ≤0.03 ≤2.00 ≤0.75 ≤0.030 ≤0.045 16.0–18.0 10.0–14.0 2.0–3.0
Filler wire ≤0.03 1.0–2.5 0.83 ≤0.020 ≤0.030 18.0–20.0 11.0–14.0 2.5–3.0

The entire welding system contains several main components: con-
tinuous wave solid-state Ytterbium fiber laser system (YLS-10000, IPG
Photonics Corporation), ABB robot (IRB-4400, ABB), MIG welding
torch (YW-50, Precitec) and Fronius welding machine (TransPuls Syn-
ergic (TPS)-4000, Fronius). Hybrid laser-arc welding head was clamped
on the end of the robot arm to complete complex three-dimensional
movements.
2.2. Experimental methods
The cross-section of the test plate was demonstrated in the
schematic diagram (Fig. 1). The blunt edge of the groove was
4 mm, the groove angle was 20° and the step width was 2 mm.
The spacing of laser and wire (DLA) was 2 mm and the defocusing
amount was 0. In order to prevent the laser high-reflection and re-
duce the splash against damaging devices, the axial of the welding
head was at an angle of 12° to the vertical, meanwhile the MIG
torch was at an angle of 30° to the vertical. The based layer (1st
layer) was applied laser beam welding (LBW layer), the remaining
layers (2nd and 3rd layer) was employed hybrid laser-arc welding
to fill the groove (HLAW layer). “laser lead” mode was conducted
during HLAW process. The welding parameters are given in
Table 2. The heat inputs for each layer were obtained by the follow-
ing equation:
means of an optical microscope, microstructure and element com-
position were investigated by a FEI Sirion-200 scanning electron
microscopy (SEM). In order to analysis the crystallographic fea-
ture, an electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) system was
also employed. The micro-hardness was measured with a Vickers
micro-hardness tester, using a load of 300 g and a dwell period of
15 s. X-ray Stress Analyzer (PROTO_LXRD, Canada, Mn-k α radia-
tion, 25KV, 25 mA, Cr filter,) was performed to measure the resid-
ual stress by utilizing sin 2 ψ method. The diffraction plane was (3
1 1) and diffraction angle was 153°. Ten angle ψ were scanned
from −38.5° to 38.5°.
3. Numerical simulation procedure
The overall framework of the simulation was shown in the Fig. 2
renewed from Rong's report [5]. The experimental parameters pro-
vided basic support for the simulation, and the experimental re-
sults can verify the simulated results. The sequential coupling
method was performed in the simulation. After the simulation of
temperature field, the thermal element needed to be converted
into mechanical element. The transient temperature results were
applied on the mechanical element as body loads. The element
birth and death technique and moving heat source were carried
out to simulate the filling of the weld.

P
Q¼ ð1Þ
V 3.1. 3D modeling and meshing

where Q is the heat input; P is the total input power (P is laser power
in the LBW layer; P is laser power and MIG power in the HLAW layer);
V is the welding speed.
Some preparations before welding need to perform, for example,
cleaning the oil stain on the test plate with acetone, Chemical
polishing the contact surfaces to guarantee the merging precision.
Argon gas (99.99%) was served as shielding gas with a flow rate of
1.5 m 3 /h to protect the test plates against oxidation during the
welding process.
2.3. Measurement methods
Extracting metallographic samples from areas where weld well
formed. The metallographic samples were cross section of weld. All
the samples were ground and polished, then etched with a solution
of HCl:HNO3:H2O = 3:1:4. The macro morphology was observed by
The two plates were symmetrical along the welding direction, so
a half model was built for meshing and analysis. Considering that the
temperature gradient was larger near the welding zone, the non-
uniform mesh was used, where the finer mesh size was applied in
the welding bead and HAZ, and coarser mesh was selected away
from the weld centerline to increase the accuracy of thermal and me-
chanical analysis [13]. At least four nodes needed to be covered by
heat source, which was also taken into account as the criteria to se-
lect the mesh size. The smallest and biggest element dimensions
were 1 × 1 × 0.5 mm and 4 × 4 × 2 mm, respectively, as shown in
Fig. 3. Solid70 which was a hexahedral element with 1-DOF of
every node was used for the thermal analysis, while Solid185 with
3-DOF of every node was applied to the mechanical analysis. The
temperature-depended thermal and mechanical properties which
were obtained from the JmatPro database were given in Fig. 4
(Base metal and welding wire are applied to one type of property
parameters).

Table 2
3.2. Heat source model
Welding parameters.
A suitable heat source model was important for the accuracy and
Layer number 1st 2nd 3rd
applicability of simulation results. Considering the cross-sectional
Laser power W 3200 1000 1000 morphology of HLAW layer, it had a wide weld width at the upper
Average current A – 160 160
position like a bowl shape, and a deep penetration like a nail
Average voltage V – 19 19
Welding speed m/min 1 0.72 0.72 shape at the bottom position. Because this layer was influenced by
Wire feed speed m/min – 5.2 5.2 two factors, arc welding widened the width and the laser welding
Defocusing amount mm 0 0 0 deepened the penetration. Thus, a new combined heat source “dou-
DLA mm – 2 2 ble ellipsoid + conical” was proposed, as shown in Fig. 5. Double el-
Heat input J/mm 192 337 337
lipsoid heat source mainly simulated arc welding part, and the
4 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653

Fig. 2. Simulation framework of thermo-mechanical FE simulation.

pffiffiffi !
conical heat source was used to simulate the heat of laser welding 6 3ð f r Q 1 Þ 3x2 3y2 3ðz−ze Þ2
qr ðx; y; zÞ ¼ pffiffiffi exp − 2 − 2 − ð3Þ
part. ar bcπ π ar b c2
The function of the new combined source was:

where Q1 = η1UI = η1P1 is arc welding input power, Q1 = η2P2 is laser

pffiffiffi  ! welding input power, af, ar, b, c is the axial length of the double ellipsoid,
6 3 f f Q1 3x2 3y2 3ðz−ze Þ2
q f ðx; y; zÞ ¼ p ffiffiffi exp − 2 − 2 − ff and fr are the heat input distribution ratios in the front and rear quad-
a f bcπ π af b c2 rants. r is the radius function for x-y plane, r c ¼ f ðzÞ ¼ r i þ ðre −ri Þ zz−z i
  e −zi
9Q 2 1 3r 2 is the thermal partition coefficient for depth, re and ri are the maximum
þ   exp − 2 ð2Þ
πð1−e Þ ðze −zi Þðr e þ r e r i þ ri Þ
−3 2 2 rc and minimum radii, ze and zi are the maximum and minimum heights.

Fig. 3. Finite element meshing.

 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653 5

Fig. 4. Material properties: (a) thermal properties, (b) mechanical properties.

The model is Gaussian distribution in the radial direction and the linear The function of hourglass like heat source was:
attenuation along the depth direction.
8  
The sectional shape of LBW layer generally presented the shape of > 9Q 0 1 3r2
>
<   exp − 2 Z 0 bZbZ e
hourglass, thus hourglass-like heat source model was applied based −3
πð1−e Þ ðze −z0 Þðre þ r e r0 þ r 0 Þ
2 2 rc1
Q v ðx; y; zÞ ¼  
on Zhan et al. [18], as shown in Fig. 6. >
> 9Q 0 1 3r 2
:   exp − 2 Z i bZbZ 0
πð1−e−3 Þ ðz0 −zi Þðr0 2 þ r0 r i þ r i 2 Þ rc2
ð4Þ

where r c1 ¼ r 0 þ ðr e −r 0 Þ zzz 0
e −z0
; r c2 ¼ r i þ ðr 0 −r i Þ zz−z i
0 −zi
.
The heat sources parameters were optimized from welding experi-
ment and listed in Tables 3 and 4.

3.3. Boundary conditions

The symmetry plane was set to be adiabatic. And the rest surfaces
were assumed to be heat transfer with ambient air directly. The heat
flux from the inner of object to the boundary surface was equal to the
heat flux from the boundary surface to the ambient air. The heat loss

Table 3
Fig. 5. The combined heat source model. The combined heat source parameters in the simulation.

Parameter Value Parameter Value

af 3 mm fr 0.40
ar 4 mm Ze2 7 mm
b 2 mm Zi2 4 mm
c 3 mm Ze3 10 mm
η1 0.65 Zi3 7 mm
η2 0.95 re 3 mm
ff 0.60 ri 1 mm

Table 4
The hourglass like heat source parameters in the
simulation.

Parameter Value

η 0.95
Ze 4 mm
Z0 2 mm
Zi 0 mm
re 2 mm
r0 1 mm
ri 2 mm
Fig. 6. Hourglass-like heat source.
6 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653

Fig. 7. Comparison analysis of sectional morphology in different layers: (a) 1st layer weld, (b) 2nd layer weld, (c) 3rd layer weld.

was taken into account due to convection and radiation. The boundary 4.1.2. Comparison of transverse residual stress
condition was expressed as follows: The experiment and simulation results of transverse and longitude
residual stress along the test line were showed in Fig. 8. The transverse
 
∂T stress presented the compressive stress state at the weld zone, and
λ ¼ hc ðT  T c Þ ð5Þ
∂n w changed from compressive stress into tensile stress until attained the
peak value (177.45 MPa) at the heat affected zone (HAZ), then followed
where ∂T is the temperature gradient at the surface normal direction, Tc by a reduction to near zero at the edge of test plate. From the base metal
∂n
is the ambient temperature. hc is the heat transfer coefficient which is to the HAZ, the longitude residual stress surged and attained the maxi-
temperature-dependent. hc is given by Eq. (6) [19]. Due to the temper- mum value (tensile stress). The compressive stress distributed at a dis-
ature differences, radiation losses are primary consideration near the tance from the weld centerline so that the longitudinal stresses in the
weld zone, convection losses gradually increase in influence away plane were self-equilibrating.
from the weld.

8  
< 0:0668  T W=m2  ° C Tb500 ° C
hc ¼   ð6Þ
: 0:231  T−82:1 W=m2  ° C T N500 ° C

4. Result and discussion

4.1. Comparison of experimental and simulated results

4.1.1. Comparison of sectional morphology

From Fig. 7, it was demonstrated that numerical results and experi-
mental under the same parameters were in good correspondence. The
bottom of the third layer weld presented a smooth arc-shaped. The
hourglass like heat source was used for the first layer to simulate suc-
cessfully the shape of the single laser full-penetration weld. And the
re-melting phenomenon of the underlying weld when the upper weld
in the welding process was successfully simulated. Thus, it was verified
that the heat source model was valid and could be used to simulate the
weld morphology and temperature field accurately. Fig. 8. Comparison analysis of residual stress.
 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653
Four points with distances of 0, 2.5 mm, 5 mm and 7.5 mm from
the centerline of weld on the upper surface were selected, and re-
sidual stresses of them were measured by X-ray diffraction
method. The test values were shown in Fig. 8. The relative errors
between experimental results and simulated results were within
the acceptable margin of error. The discrepancy between the ex-
perimental data and numerically predicted was caused by the mea-
suring error of the X-ray diffraction machine due to the irregular
surface of weld [13]. In summary, the simulation results of stress
field were credible and acceptable, which were in qualitative
agreement with measurement.
4.2. Mechanism analysis of microstructure heterogeneity
As shown in the Fig. 9, the microstructure of weld center in different
layers observed under SEM. Fig. 9(a), (b), (c) were the microstructures
of the upper weld (3rd layer), the middle weld (2nd layer), and the
lower weld (1st layer), respectively. The microstructure of upper weld
was coarse and mainly the columnar crystal zone. The grain distribution
of the middle weld layer was more uniform than that of the upper weld
layer. Moreover, the grain size of the lower weld was significantly finer
than the other layers. (d) was the microstructure near the fusion line of
laser weld, and the columnar crystals grew preferentially along the ver-
tical direction of fusion line. In order to further investigate the reason
of microstructure distinction of different layers, Electron Back-
Scattered Diffraction (EBSD) testing was performed to quantitatively
analyze.
The average grain sizes of three layers were obviously distin-
guished. The grain size of the third layer was 71.88 μm. The welding
heat input of the second layer was the same as the third layer, both
of which were 337 J/mm, however, the grain size of the second
layer (60.64 μm) was much finer, which was 15.6% smaller than
the first layer. The first layer of weld was equivalent to butt
Fig. 9. SEM of: (a) middle area of 3rd layer, (b) middle area of 2nd layer, (c) middle area of 1st layer and (d) fusion line zone.
7
welding without the addition of welding wire, the welding heat
input was 192 J/mm. According to the previous investigation, dur-
ing multi-layer welding, the former weld was heat-treated by the
latter weld [1]. Thus, the lower weld (1st layer) was subjected to
thermal influence by the welding process of the upper two welds
(2nd layer and 3rd layer). The grain size of the first layer was min-
imum (40.19 μm), which was 78.8% lower than the first layer
(Fig. 10).
In order to further analyze the causes of microstructure inhomo-
geneity, the center cross-section of the weld was extracted and its
temperature field was simulated. Fig. 11(a) was the temperature
field when welding the second layer, Fig. 11(b) was the temperature
field when welding the third layer. The area inside the 1690 K iso-
therm of the lower weld was the re-melting zone. The area outside
the 1690 K isotherm was the post-heating effect zone, the 1360 K–
1690 K was the overheating zone and the 829 K–1360 K was the dy-
namic recrystallization zone. Therefore, when the upper weld was in
the welding process, it had two effects on the lower weld: one was to
re-melt part of the lower weld, which was equivalent to turn back
into molten metal and re-involve in the cooling. The grain orienta-
tion changed, which grew along the direction of the new weld tem-
perature gradient; The other was to make the bottom of the lower
weld subject to the post-heating effect. The post-heating effect
zone could be subdivided into the overheating zone which made
grain coarsen and the grain refinement zone which homogenized
grain size. This inference successfully explained why the heat
input of the second weld was the same as the third weld, neverthe-
less the grain size of which was smaller than the third weld. From
the results of the micro-hardness test along the weld center line, as
shown in Fig. 14, it could be found that a sudden decrease occurred
in the interlaminar region, indicating that partial softening occurred
in the overheating zone for grain coarsening. Thus, the weld was di-
vided into some regions, including the original weld zone, the re-
8 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653

Fig. 10. EBSD test of: (a) 1st layer, (b) 2nd layer, (c) 3rd layer, (d) grain size, (e) and (f) grain orientation.

melting zone and the post-heating effect zone. As shown in Fig. 11
(c).
In order to clarify the chemical composition of the phase, EDS
analysis was performed on point a (white phase) and point b (grey
phase) of the re-melting zone, and the results were summarized in
Fig. 12(c)–(e). We could find that from the grey matrix phase to
the white precipitate phase, Fe wt% and Ni wt% decreased as well
as Mo wt% and Cr wt% increased, where Ni was the main element
of austenite, Mo and Cr was the main element of ferrite, so we
could infer that this white feathery phase was a type of ferrite,
which we called “feathery ferrite” here. It was obvious that most of
the feathery ferrite was precipitated in the RZ. In the non-re-
melting zone (NRZ), the shape of ferrite precipitated from the aus-
tenite grain boundary was worm-like, where weld metal followed
F-A solidification mode [20]. Point c (grey phase) was in the non-
re-melting zone, by comparison, the carbon element content of
point c was much smaller than the point a and b, thus, it could be
inferred that segregation of carbon occurred in the RZ due to second-
ary melting.
In order to demonstrate why the feathery ferrite formed in re-
melting zone, the thermal cycle curves of points 1, 2, 3, and 4
marked in Fig. 11(b) were extracted, and it was found that the
cooling rate at point 1 in RZ was significantly faster than other
points. From the Fe-Cr-Ni ternary diagram (70%Fe) as shown in
Fig. 13(b), the composition of RZ may be indicate along the red dot-
ted line, three phase regions were passed through during the
cooling process, including γ + δ phase region, pure γ phase region
and metastable γ + σ phase region. When the cooling rate was fast,
the curves of the phase diagram need shift to the lower left relative
to the equilibrium phase diagram. Only the temperature of point 1
exceeded austenite transition temperature during re-melting pro-
cess. It was known from previous analysis that the carbon content
at the RZ was increased, hence, there was σ ferrite phase precipi-
tated in the RZ. In other words, after experiencing the F-A
 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653
Fig. 11. Temperature contour of mid-section of weld: (a) middle layer, (b) upper layer and (c) dividing zones of multi-layer weld.
solidification mode, due to the excessive cooling rate, a segregation
reaction occurred to precipitate the feathery ferrite inside the aus-
tenite grains. The cooling rates of points 2, 3, and 4 were gradually
decreased. When the cooling rate decreased, the curves of the
phase diagram were equal to shift to the upper right relative to the
equilibrium phase diagram. Therefore, the peak temperature did
not reach the phase transition temperature, and not passed the
metastable γ + σ phase region, so there was no such feathery ferrite
precipitation outside the RZ.
Thus, partial mechanical property may occur in the RZ. The
micro-hardness was measured along the center of the weld at the
cross-section, as shown in Fig. 14, and it was found that the hard-
ness sharply increased at the RZ of each weld approximately
250 HV, which was about 19% higher than the average hardness
of other locations in the weld centerline, indicating that the feath-
ery ferrite precipitation could increase the local hardness of the
weld.
4.3. Variation of residual stress along the thickness direction
The overall trend of simulation and test results was similar,
although there were some errors. And it was consistent with
the results obtained by Ueda et al. [22] using the 2D thermos-
elastic finite element method (Fig. 15). There were two factors
affecting the residual stress simulation results along the
9
thickness direction: one was the tensile stress caused by the re-
straint of shrinkage of newly added weld; the second was that
the existed lower weld metal was constrained, and the addi-
tional shrinkage stress based on the original stress. Therefore,
with the weld beads increasing, the stress was repeatedly
superimposed to form such tendency. The XRD method was
used to measure the residual stress, the essence of which was
to test the variation of the interplanar crystal spacing of the ma-
terial under the loaded state. The formula is as following [23]:
E π ∂ð2θÞ
σ ¼− cotθ0 ð7Þ
2ð1 þ vÞ 180 ∂ sin2 ψ
where σ is the calculated stress. E, ν, θ0 are the elastic modulus,
the Poisson's ratio, and the diffraction angle in the unstressed
state, respectively. These variables are determined by the mate-
∂ð2θÞ
rial properties. reflects the variation of lattice strain in dif-
∂ sin2 ψ
ferent ψ angular directions. From the measured results, it could
be found that the transverse residual stress of the weld suddenly
changed at the interlaminar RZ. This phenomenon could indi-
rectly explain that the size and orientation of some grains in
the RZ changed significantly, resulting in the disparity of
interplanar crystal spacing.
10 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653

Fig. 12. EDS results and corresponding analyzed position: (a) position of area A, (b) position of test points and (c)–(e) EDS patterns of point a, b and c.

Fig. 13. (a) Temperature histories of points marked in Fig. 11(b), (b) Vertical section of Fe-Cr-Ni ternary diagram (70% Fe) [21].
 L. Chen et al. / Materials and Design 168 (2019) 107653
Fig. 14. Micro-hardness along the thickness direction of mid-section of weld.
5. Conclusion
(1) The reasonable combined heat sources were applied to simulate
the single laser beam welding and hybrid laser-arc welding, and
gave an accurate prediction of weld cross-sectioned geometry.
(2) Considering temperature histories caused by interaction be-
tween layers of the weld, the multilayer weld was divided into
three parts: original zone, re-melting zone and post-heating ef-
fect zone. The post-heating effect zone could be subdivided into
an overheating zone which made grains coarsen and a grain re-
finement zone which homogenized grain size.
(3) The forming mechanism of feathery ferrite was clarified by com-
bining the simulated temperature histories with microstructure
analysis. Local excessive cooling rate and carbon segregation in
the re-melting zone formed the precipitation conditions of feath-
ery ferrite.
(4) The numerical and measurement results of residual stress were
relatively in the same trend. The test results of micro-hardness
and residual stress along the thickness direction of the weld
sharply changed at the interlayer position, indicating that the
grain size and orientation in the re-melting zone changed greatly.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Lin Chen: Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing, Conceptu-
alization, Investigation, Software, Formal analysis, Methodology, Valida-
tion, Data curation. Gaoyang Mi: Resources, Writing - review & editing,
Methodology. Xiong Zhang: Investigation, Validation. Chunming
Wang: Supervision, Resources, Writing - review & editing.
Fig. 15. (a) Transverse residual stress contour. (b) Residual stress along the thickness direction.
11
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China (Grant No. 51705173), the National Natural Science Foun-
dation of China (Grant No. 51421062), the National Program on Key
Basic Research Project (973 Program) (Grant No. 2014CB046703) and
the Key Research and Development Program of Jiangsu Province of
China (BE2016005-1). We would like to express our deep gratitude
to the Analysis and Test Center of HUST (Huazhong University of Sci-
ence and Technology) and the State Key Laboratory of Material Pro-
cessing and Die & Mould Technology of HUST, for their friendly
cooperation.
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