Submerged arc welding (SAW) describes the process of a continuously fed solid electrode “submerged” under a blanket of granular fusible flux. The blanket protects the molten weld and arc zone from atmospheric contamination.
Submerged arc welding (SAW) is widely used in heavy steel plate fabrication, pressure vessels, and storage tanks
SAW has two major advantages over manual welding processes, speed of deposition and quality of the weld.
When used as a fully or semi-automated process the rate of deposition of the weld is much greater than with manual welding alone. The deposition rates can be increased by metal additives in the submerged arc flux. Additional electrodes can be used to increase the overall deposition rate.
The quality of the weld metal deposited by the submerged arc welding process is high. The weld metal strength and ductility exceeds that of the mild steel or low-alloy base material when the correct combination of electrode wire and submerged arc flux is used. When submerged arc welds are made by machine or automatically, the human factor inherent to the manual welding processes is eliminated. The weld will be more uniform and free from inconsistencies. In general, the weld bead size per pass is much greater with submerged arc welding than with any of the other arc welding processes. The heat input is higher and cooling rates are slower. For this reason, gases are allowed more time to escape. Additionally, since the submerged arc slag is lower in density than the weld metal, it will float out to the top of the weld. Uniformity and consistency are advantages of this process when applied automatically.
In combination with the Deuma process the quality of the weld is significantly better than weld produced by manual MIG welding.
