A heat exchanger refers to a pressure vessel that indirectly exchanges heat between low-temperature/ high-temperature fluids with a solid wall interposed therebetween, and a shell-and-tube cylindrical heat exchanger is generally applied. The shell-and-tube cylindrical heat exchanger is widely used in ships and there is a problem in that the welding area is narrow and welding defects occur a lot due to high-level welding. In particular, in the case of a ship heat exchanger, if a problem occurs in the welding part during operation, the possibility of a safety accident is high, and repair is not easy. In this study, to solve this problem, the GTAW(Gas Tungsten Arc Welding) method was applied to secure the optimum conditions for pipe welding of STS304 material with a thickness of 5.5mm and to conduct a test. Afterwards, in accordance with the ASME rules, welding performance was verified through cross-sectional observation of welds, mechanical property tests, (tensile strength, bending strength, cryogenic impact strength) and non-destructive testing(PT, RT).

The penetration depth, bead height, width, and internal porosity were analyzed to select the perfect penetration conditions for the STS316L tube material with an outer diameter of 38.1mm and a thickness of 3.4 mm. The welding conditions to secure a penetration depth of 3.4mm or more were selected. In addition, a welding range in which underfill does not occur was selected. The range of the selected conditions is the condition of a welding speed of 0.75 to 1.25m/min with an output of 2.0kW. The selected welding conditions were applied to STS316L tube orbital welding, and as a result of cross-sectional inspection after welding, a welded part of less than 4% of complete penetration and porosity was secured. The strength of the weld was measured to be more than 800kgf, and the hardness of the weld was found to decrease compared to the base material. The decrease in the hardness of the weld is judged by the annealing effect of the heat treated base material.