Laser beam welding tempered 300M ultrahigh mechanical strength steel

AISI 300M ultrahigh strength steel has been used in a number of high demanding applications, such as the VLS Brazilian rocket project. This work intends to propose laser beam welding, with subsequent tempering, as a possible route for the fabrication of engineering pieces of this steel. A 2 kW fiber laser was used to produce welded coupons for metallographic, hardness and tensile strength tests. It has been shown that convenient laser parameters for a 3 mm thick plate are 50 mm/s welding speed and 1200 W laser power. However, both welded materials and heat-affected zones presented high hardnes...