Dear Experts

Pls provide your guidance.
Ist time working with cast steel
After MPI, found cracks on ASTM A148-Grade 105-85 Cast Steel - pyramid shape ( to be welded to Spudcan ).
Pls advise on:
1  Suitable SMAW or FCAW welding consumable
2  Methodlogy in repairing.
3  Can i use backgouging or only grinding allowed to remove the crack.
4  I was advised to drill hole at the end of crack - what dia. drill bit and depth reqd?
5  Btw, how to determine end of the crack(s)- if seems to be branching like " christams tree " ?
5  Advised to preheat 100 ~ 150 deg celcius.
6  Does pWHT reqd or post heating will be enough?

Thanks

It sounds like the driven end of the spud? How thick, how big, how much does it weigh?

I looked on line to see what you were dealing with. The mechanicals are impressive: UTS 105 ksi, Yield 85 ksi, elongation 17%, available in the annealed, normalized, normalized and tempered, or quenched and tempered conditions. I couldn't find any typical chemistry which leads me to believe the foundry can play with the chemistry as long as the mechanicals are met.

Weldability - great question. Until you have the actual chemistry there's little to say about the weldability. Even when you know the chemistry you still need to know the state of heat treatment if you expect to weld it successfully. If it is anything other than normalized or annealed you will have to heat treat it before you weld it.

You have an interesting problem my friend.

Best regards - Al