Welding Heat-Affected Zone Microstructure

Arc welding does more than melt a seam — the moving heat source it drags across the plate leaves a whole banded landscape of microstructures behind it. This simulator renders a steel plate as a voxel grid and colors every voxel by the peak temperature it experienced as a Rosenthal moving point-source arc passed overhead, reproducing the classic fusion / coarse-grained / fine-grained / intercritical / subcritical heat-affected-zone banding (or, for austenitic stainless steel, the grain-growth and chromium-carbide sensitization zones) seen in a real weld cross-section. Adjust arc power, travel speed, preheat temperature and base material and watch the zone widths, the fusion-zone size, and the t₈/₅ cooling time — the number welding codes actually use to judge hardening and hydrogen-cracking risk — respond in real time.