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Repair welding of a rotating electrical machine's broken shaft

Article  in  Welding and Cutting · June 2019

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REPORTS
Repair welding of a rotating electrical machine’s
broken shaft
1 Introduction
Shafts of the rotating electrical ma-
chinery are elements for transmission
of power and rotational motion, that are
exposed to various failure mechanisms
or their combinations [1] during their ex-
ploitation period. Due to their function
and loading, shafts are usually highly
stressed components.
The basic failure mechanisms acting
on rotating shafts are overload, fatigue,
corrosion and wear. Corrosion and wear
generally leave visible marks on the shaft’s
surface as their impact grows, but they
alone can not cause the shaft to break. Fa-
tigue and overload are failure mechanisms
that ultimately cause the shaft to break.
Shaft surfaces damaged by wear or corro-
sion can be fairly easy to repair with com-
monly used overlay welding or thermal
spray techniques. However, completely
broken shafts require a more complex re-
pair approach.
On rotating electrical machines, due to
the rotor (armature) design, it is often not
possible to replace damaged shafts with-
out a complete overhaul. Shafts are critical
machine components, therefore damaged
or otherwise failed shafts put the complete
rotating machine out of function. Replac-
ing the complete armature or perhaps the
whole machine bears a significant finan-
cial expense. This presents an undesira-
ble solution to the problem. Alternatively,
Table 1 • Technical characteristics of DC collector motor.
Fig. 1 • DC collector motor, P = 44 – 220 kW.
198
shaft repair welding, as a solution that en-
ables cost-saving, can be used.
This paper describes the technolo-
gy of repair welding of the broken shaft
in a case study of DC collector motor,
P = 44 – 220 kW, shown on Fig. 1. Technical
characteristics of the motor and its shaft
are specified in Table 1. The design of elec-
tric motor is of an older type, dating back
to the 1980s. The armature is made from
thin magnetic sheets stacked perpendic-
ularly to the machine axis, and from sup-
porting insulated conductors that form
armature winding. During motor produc-
tion, armature is shrink fitted to the rotor
shaft, creating a non-separable assembly.
The collector is made from insulated cop-
per strips stacked radially to form a ring.
The collector is connected to the armature
winding and is also an integral part of the
rotor assembly.
During the exploitation period, the
motor’s shaft suffered a break failure of the
front end. Shaft’s front end is of diameter
∅ = 90m6 mm, and fracture surface is dis-
tanced around 165 mm from the shaft’s ut-
most end, shown on Fig. 2a. Visual inves-
tigation of fracture surfaces revealed the
cause of shaft failure to stem from fatigue
mechanisms. Typical fracture surfaces
obtained from laboratory test specimens
subjected to a range of different loading
conditions were used to determine the
specific loading conditions [2]. In this case
low nominal stress caused the rotating
bending of the shaft. The impact of high
stress concentration, from shaft step with
a small radius, is visible on the fracture
surface, showing the location of instanta-
neous fracture i.e. fast fracture zone slight-
ly removed from the centre of the shaft’s
circular section, shown on Fig. 2b.
Because of the before mentioned mo-
tor’s armature design and the inability to
disassemble the armature and simply re-
place the broken shaft, the only available
option was to make welding repairs of
the existing motor’s shaft. Because of the
motor’s significance, the repairs had to be
done in the shortest possible time period.
2 Joint design and preparation
When approaching the shaft repairs, it
is mandatory to first determine the most
suitable welded joint preparation, its-
geometric shape and dimensional values.
Shape and dimensions of the shaft exten-
sion, which is added to the existing shaft’s
front end, must also be determined. This
is done in accordance with recommenda-
tions for welded joint preparation found
in EN ISO 9692-1 [3], when using the pro-
cesses such as manual metal arc welding,
gas-shielded metal arc welding or TIG
welding etc. The norm also applies to steel
metallic materials, which are present in
the shaft – shaft extension joint. Joint ver-
sion Ref. No. 1.7 was chosen as a reference
for further modifications with respect to
specific shaft repair application. This type
of joint is a butt weld, single-V prepara-
tion with V root, applicable for materials
of thickness greater than 12 mm. The joint
itself has the root V opening at the angle
60° ⩽ α ⩽ 90°, and second V opening at
the angle 10° ⩽ β ⩽ 15°. Permissible gap
should be in range of 2 ⩽ b ⩽ 4 mm. This
type of joint is intended to be used in butt
welding the plates, when their thickness
exceeds the capabilities of simple sin-
gle-V preparation joints. With the increase
in thickness of plates in a butt joint, the
width of a joint face opening also increas-
es. Wider joint face opening requires more
filler metal material, and in turn generates
higher production costs. In order to reduce
the joint cross section, various joint types
were introduced into practice, such as J or
Welding and Cutting 18 (2019) No. 3

U preparation, steep flanked V preparation
with backing strip etc. Also to be noted is
the fact that such joint preparations are
commonly used when welding longitudi-
nally placed plates.
Specific shaft repair requires some-
what modified joint preparation and
design, since this is a case of welding
two axisymmetric bodies. This joint is a
single-bevel preparation butt weld with
single-bevel root, or otherwise named
K preparation butt weld with dual bev-
el, shown on Fig. 3a. The joint itself is
axisymmetric, since it has to be welded
360° around the shaft’s central axis, closing
the full circular contour. Proper selection
of welded joint preparation shape and di-
mensions should enable full root penetra-
tion, ensuring complete and correct fusion
of the joint’s metal parts. It is important to
achieve continuous, homogenous section
of welded joint without volumetric indica-
tions. Incomplete root penetration or lack
of fusion can be essentially compared to
initial cracks inside the metallic material,
Welding and Cutting 18 (2019) No. 3
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present prior to the exploitation of the ma-
chine part, and therefore must be avoided
with proper joint preparation and welding.
Dual bevelling of the K butt weld flanks is
applied to allow sufficient access for MAG
gun nozzle during the welding and also to
ensure an optimal welded joint cross-sec-
tional area. The root opening angle α = 55°
expands the joint and is mandatory to en-
sure proper root penetration and welding
access, while second angle β = 15° closes
the joint face opening and therefore opti-
mises the cross-section area and related
filler metal material consumption.
Since the diameter of the shaft’s front
end is ∅ = 90m6 mm, a diameter of the
shaft extension used is ∅ = 100 mm. A
wider extension diameter is necessary as it
leaves enough material for final machining
to a required shaft diameter ∅ = 90m6 mm,
after welding operations are finished. Shaft
extension is produced from a steel round
bar on a horizontal lathe machine, using
the turning machining process, shown on
Fig. 3b. Existing shaft’s front end is ma-
Fig. 2 • Break
failure of
motor’s shaft
front end:
a) drawing,
b) fracture
surface.
Fig. 3 • Joint
design and
preparation:
a) drawing,
b) machined
shaft exten-
sion.
chined in order to flatten the fractured sur-
face and prepare the adjacent side of the
K butt weld joint. It is necessary to me-
chanically remove all the damaged materi-
al in the vicinity of fractured surface in or-
der to assure a welded joint without impu-
rities and various undesirable inclusions.
Shaft extension has a base protrusion of
∅ = 4 mm in diameter, which is used for
alignment and centering inside the joint.
Base protrusion is placed directly on to the
machined surface of the existing shaft’s
front end. During the welding, when using
the appropriate welding parameters, it is
possible to fully penetrate the base protru-
sion with first welding passes, therefore no
gap between the shaft’s front end and base
protrusion is needed. Adjusted and cen-
tred parts of the joint are secured during
the welding process preparation by means
of vertical welding position and securing
ribs that are tack welded, which are later
removed. Centring and adjusting of shaft
extension can also be achieved by drilling
a shallow recess on existing shaft’s front
199

REPORTS
end surface. This recess provides guidance
by shape for the base protrusion of shaft
extension. Despite the possibility of in-
complete root penetration and formation
of cavity in the central drilled recess, the
mechanical integrity of the welded joint is
not affected, since the torsional and flex-
ural stresses in the centre of the circular
section always equal zero.
3 Technological process and
materials
Based on existing technical documen-
tation regarding the DC collector motor
and its shaft, available from the manufac-
turer, the existing shaft material can be
determined. The material, marked as base
material I according to EN 10025-2 stand-
ard, is a non-alloy structural steel grade
S355J0/material number 1.0553. Material
chosen for the shaft extension, marked as
base material II, is a non-alloy structural
steel grade S355J2+N/material number
1.0577. In the grouping systems for Euro-
pean materials according to welding suit-
ability ISO/TR 20172 [4] and in guidelines
for metallic materials grouping system
ISO/TR 15608 [5], both materials belong
to the group 1.2 which refers to steels
with a specified minimum yield strength
275 MPa < ReH ⩽ 360 MPa. Chemical com-
position of the shaft extension base metal
and its mechanical properties are speci-
fied in Table 2. Specified values apply for
hot rolled round bar of diameter ∅ = 100
mm.
For repair welding of the broken shaft,
the manual MAG (metal active gas) weld-
Table 2 • Chemical composition and mechanical properties of base metal II, S355J2+N (material number 1.0577).
Table 3 • Chemical composition and mechanical properties of filler metal, ISO 14341-A-G 42 4 M21 3Si1.
200
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ing with solid wire electrode (135) process
is chosen as the most appropriate. Manu-
facture of the axisymmetric K butt joint re-
quires multi-pass welding technique with
a relatively high number of weld passes.
Factors that determine a number of passes
inside the joint are welding travel speed,
weave width and technique, wire feed
speed and diameter and welding machine
parameters. As mentioned before, geo-
metry of the joint determines the volume
of the filler material and is therefore also
related to the number of passes. When
welding carbon and low alloy steels, high-
er number of welding passes contributes
to mechanical properties, particularly to
toughness increase [6]. Each subsequent
welding pass generates the reheat thermal
cycle which normalises microstructure
and reduces the residual stresses in the
previous weld metal. Reducing the energy
input per pass limits the undesired grain
growth. Previous weld passes generate
preheat and slow down the cooling rate
of total weld metal. The use of MAG mul-
ti-pass welding with solid wire electrode
process for said K butt joint, is rational
from the production aspect as well as from
the aspect of welding duration. MAG weld-
ing processes with flux cored (136) or met-
al cored electrodes (138) could be used as
an alternative.
Filler material is chosen in accordance
to chemical composition and mechani-
cal properties of material of the existing
shaft, i.e. base material I and material of
shaft extension, i.e. base material II. It is a
solid wire electrode for gas shielded met-
al arc welding of non-alloy and fine grain
steels, according to ISO 14341-A standard,
labelled G42-4 M21 3Si1 in diameter of
∅ = 1.2 mm, manufactured by Oerlikon /
Air Liquide. The wire is suitable for weld-
ing a wide range of structural steel appli-
cations. Chemical composition of the fill-
er metal and its mechanical properties is
specified in Table 3.
4 Welding process preparation
The broken shaft’s front end had been
machined and all material was removed
from fracture surface to the first shaft jour-
nal in diameter of ∅ 99.8-0.2 mm. Machin-
ing was done on the horizontal lathe ma-
chine. This is necessary in order to make a
quality preparation of the K butt weld joint
and to completely remove all damaged
material that could cause imperfections
and difficulties during the welding of a
new joint.
Due to the large dimensions and
considerable mass of the DC motor, it is
necessary to make high quality process
preparations, ensure proper manipulation
and appropriate repair welding setup. The
complete DC collector motor is set in a
vertical position in order to ensure unob-
structed access for the welder. The bottom
end of the motor’s shaft, behind a collec-
tor, is placed in a corresponding coupling
and the joint is tightened. Coupling, which
serves as a support base for the motor, is
placed on top of the slotted floor plate and
secured with screws, therefore securing
the motor’s vertical position and disabling
its swinging and inclination. On central
Welding and Cutting 18 (2019) No. 3
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part of the motor, around the armature, a

collar is placed to provide a holding point
for lifting slings and assist during the mo-
tor’s lifting to a vertical working position.
This welding setup enables welding in a PB
and PC positions, Fig. 4. Shaft extension’s
base protrusion is placed on top of the ex-
isting shaft’s machined surface, forming
the axisymmetric K butt joint. Shaft exten-
sion is radially centred, while four secur-
ing ribs are placed circumferentially and
tack welded.
Conductors of the motor’s armature
winding are insulated using the F thermal
class electrical insulation according to EN
60085 standard [7]. Such insulation has
RTE (Relative Thermal Endurance) index of
> 155 – 180°C. During the welding process
it is mandatory to limit the thermal con-
duction through shaft metal and prevent
overheating of armature resulting in ther-
mal damage of insulation. Multiple layers
of stone wool serve as thermal protection,
preventing the overheating of lower por-
tions of shaft and armature, while protec- Fig. 4 • Welding
tive metal circular sheet serves as a physi- setup and repair
cal guard from spattering. welding process.
Both base materials are of non-alloy
low carbon steel grade, and therefore pre- down of the weld material’s cooling rate therefore no possibility of rotating the DC
heating rules for this metallic materials cat- is not a primary concern, preheating is collector motor and corresponding K butt
egory applies. Determination of minimum mostly done to ensure the moisture evap- joint around the vertical axis, the weld-
preheating temperature is given in various oration, which is a source of undesirable er must walk around the motor and weld
international standards and is based on hydrogen. Preheating is applied locally to 3 × 120° arches, Fig. 4. After each com-
factors such as steel chemical composition the K butt joint and nearby areas by means pleted welding pass, surfaces are properly
or carbon equivalent, combined materials of oxy-acetylene gas torch. cleaned with wire brush and visual control
thickness, heat input and class of weld- is carried out to inspect possible imperfec-
ing consumable. Since low carbon steels 5 Welding process tions. Circular welding passes are stacked
to be welded have a carbon equivalent Repair welding is performed in PB from bottom to top, up to the filling and
CEIIW = 0.44, minimum preheating tem- and PC working positions. Since no ap- completion of the K butt joint, as depicted
perature is set to Tp = 80°C. While slowing propriate turning device is available and on joint welding sequence, Fig. 5a.

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REPORTS

Interpass temperature is set to maxi- tionary air. Thermal protection serves the process by turning on horizontal lathe, Fig.
mum Ti,max = 220°C in order to limit shaft purpose of slowing down the weld material 7a, a minimum of 24 h have passed. This is
and armature overheating. During the cooling rate, similarly to the preheating, but a period of cold cracking i.e. HIC (hydro-
welding process, constant monitoring of is applied after the welding. From cooling gen-induced cracking) formation in weld
joint weld metal temperatures, as well as the shaft’s welded joint to room temper- metal, therefore no new imperfections and
shaft temperatures in a zone below weld- ature to the beginning of the machining defects are expected afterwards.
ed joint and in a zone near thermal pro-
tection, is maintained, Fig. 5b. Measured
shaft temperatures Tshaft = 60 – 120°C are
lower than RTE index of F class insula-
tion, so no thermal damage to insulation
is expected. All temperatures are meas-
ured using the handheld IR thermometer
gun.
Welding parameters for MAG (135)
process are specified in Table 4. Shield-
ing gas used is M21 type of gas mixture
according to ISO 14175, consisting of
82% Ar + 18% CO2. As a general rule, root
passes are done with short-circuit met-
al transfer mode, with lower amperage,
while fill and cover passes are done with
globular and spray transfers, gradually in-
creasing the amperage followed with the
increase in heat input.
Welding parameters used for repair Fig. 5 • Axisymmetric K butt joint with dual bevel a) welding passes b) temperature monitoring.
welding are previously proven on a basis
of WPQR (Welding Procedure Qualifica-
tion Record) produced on a single-V butt
weld specimen with 30 mm thick plates
made of steel S355J2 from material group
1.2, shown on Fig. 6. Laboratory testing
was conducted in order to confirm me-
chanical properties of the welded joint.
Weld Vickers hardness testing with a
HV10 load was done on the macro sec-
tion, based on 30 indentations, Table 5.
Maximum hardness of 236.4 HV10 was re-
corded at point 5 in GCHAZ (grain-coars-
ened heat-affected zone), which is below
the maximum permitted hardness value
of 380 HV for non-heat treated material
Fig. 6 • Single-V butt weld WPQR specimen’s cross section with hardness testing indentations (WM: weld
group 1, according to EN ISO 15614-1 [8]. metal, BM: base metal, HAZ: heat-affected zone, GCHAZ: grain-coarsened heat-affected zone).
The Charpy impact test was performed
in WM (weld metal), FL (fusion line) and
FL + 2 mm locations inside the welded
joint, and all test results, Table 5, met the
requirement of minimum average val-
ue of 117 J for weld metal material. The
results of mechanical properties testing
were all found to be acceptable and there-
fore welding technology applicable for re-
pair welding procedure.

6 Final machining and inspection

After successful completion of the re-
pair welding process, the shaft’s welded
joint is wrapped with stone wool thermal
protection and left overnight to cool on sta- Fig. 7 • Repaired shaft: a) after repair welding b) final machined.

202 Welding and Cutting 18 (2019) No. 3

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Table 4 • Welding parameters of MAG (135) process.
Table 5 • WPQR of single-V butt weld: mechanical properties testing results.
The repaired shaft is premachined to
a slightly larger diameter (+0.2/+0.3 mm)
than the final required diameter of ∅ =
90m6 mm. This is necessary in order to
ensure sufficient material for removal if
subsequent welding defects are revealed
after the machining process. NDT (non-
destructive testing) methods used for
surface inspection are visual testing (VT)
according to EN ISO 17637 and magnet-
ic particle testing (MT) according to EN
ISO 17638. For volumetric inspection of
repair welded shaft material, ultrasonic
testing (UT) method according to EN ISO
17640 is used. The inspection is carried out
throughout the whole volume and surface
of shaft extension. No surface or volumet-
ric imperfections are detected. After con-
firmation of the NDT inspection results,
final machining of the shaft shown on Fig.
7b, and milling of the keyway slot is done.
7 Conclusions
In a modern industrial practice shafts
which suffered various exploitational sur-
face defects from corrosion or wear influ-
ences, are generally successfully repaired
with commonly used overlay welding or
thermal spray techniques. These tech-
niques restore surface integrity and ena-
ble continuation of service usage. Shafts
that failed due to breaks are however
mostly denoted as irreparable and intend-
ed for scrap metal. This paper describes,
in a case study of a specific DC collector
Welding and Cutting 18 (2019) No. 3
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motor, a method of repair welding of a
shaft that suffered a fatigue induced break
of the front end. Inspection results and
various findings obtained after the suc-
cessful repair welding process, show that
the applied technological method is ap-
propriate and yields results in accordance
to requirements on integrity and function
of a shaft as well as the whole rotating
electrical machine. Application of axisym-
metric K butt weld joint with dual bevel
for repair procedures of various broken
shafts, despite requiring more effort for
joint preparation compared to a simple
butt joints, ensures complete root pene-
tration and therefore a long exploitation-
al life span. The potential of stated repair
welding procedure is substantial, since it
can be generally applied to shafts of var-
ious dimensions, masses and purposes,
that have suffered break failures or simi-
lar damages. Various axisymmetric bod-
ies could also be repaired using the same
procedure. Adapting the butt joint designs
and dimensions for other similar applica-
tions potentially yield even better results
and expand the repair procedure poten-
tial. This is, however, subject to further in-
vestigations.
Damir Tomerlin,
Končar – Generators and Motors Inc.,
Zagreb, Croatia
Literature
[1] Handbook of reliability prediction pro-
cedures for mechanical equipment,
CARDEROCKDIV, NSWC-11, West Bethes-
da, Maryland, 2011.
[2] Milella P.P.: Fatigue and corrosion in met-
als, Springer, 2013.
[3] EN ISO 9692-1:2013 – Welding and allied
processes – Recommendations for joint
preparation – Part 1: Manual metal-arc
welding, gas-shielded metal-arc welding,
gas welding, TIG welding and beam weld-
ing of steel, CEN, 2013.
[4] ISO/TR 20172:2009 – Welding – Grouping
systems for materials – European materi-
als, ISO, 2009.
[5] ISO/TR 15608:2017 – Welding – Guidelines
for a metallic materials grouping system,
ISO, 2017.
[6] Chen, C.C., A. Pollack: Influence of weld-
ing on steel weldment properties, ASM In-
ternational, ASM Handbook, 1993.
[7] EN 60085:2008 - Electrical insulation –
Thermal classification, CENELEC, 2008.
[8] EN ISO 15614-1:2004 – Specification and
qualification of welding procedures for
metallic materials – Welding procedure
test – Part 1 – Arc and gas welding of steels
and arc welding of nickel and nickel alloys,
CEN, 2004.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author thanks Konč ar – Generators
and Motors Inc. for the technical sup-
port, experimental investigations, mate-
rial testing and the provision of materi-
als and equipment required for the suc-
cessful conducting of the technological
process of broken shaft repair welding.
203