welding titanium
 

welding titanium
i will be autogenously welding .125 in. thick cp grade 2 titanium using the gtaw process. the surrounding atmosphere will be purged with argon. i know that the weld must be cooled to below 800 degrees f before entering the atmosphere. my question is: "is it possible to cool the weld too quickly?".
the weldment will be post weld heat treated after welding.
will the weld crack etc... if it is cooled to fast?
thanks in advance!
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in our welding of titanium as you state we let the weld cool under purge gas to 800f max, normally 600f. we then pull the purge and let the material air cool and have never had a problem. i have seen some pretty bad ti welds in grade 2 material and have never seen any cracking when cooling from welding temperature. another thing is that a ti weld is cooled fairly rapidly by the trailing shield, normally well below the 800f mark. we are looking for corrosion resistance and not necessarily high strength so we never heat treat ti.
is your heat treatment a stress relief or an anneal?