Ni-Touch Nickel Electrodes

Broco's Ni-Touch™ nickel wet welding electrode was developed to allow underwater wet welding of carbon and high tensile steels which would normally require the use of more expensive dry chamber welding. Nickel wet welding electrodes have been used by the U.S. Navy since the early 1980s for selective ship repairs. Now Broco® brings customers an improved industry-leading nickel electrode which produces welds with less porosity and allows deeper welding in the overhead position. Ni-Touch™ electrode is appropriate for all position groove and fillet welds.

High tensile steels generally have carbon contents and carbon equivalents such that welding using carbon steel wet welding electrodes would result in cracking in the heat-affected-zone due to hydrogen embrittlement within a quench-hardened microstructure. With Ni-Touch™ the nickel electrode mitigates the effect of hydrogen and results in successful underwater wet welds involving a broad range of high carbon equivalent steels, including HY-80 quenched, and tempered steel used in Naval ships with carbon equivalents exceeding 0.50 percent.

About Ni-Touch™:

• Presently qualified to a water depth of 33 feet.
• Test results exceed the requirements of the American Welding Society Specification D3.6 for Class B underwater wet welds.
• Meets the more stringent requirements of the Navy's Naval Ship Technical Manual NSTM 074; and
• Typically, yield strengths exceeding 70 ksi and tensile strengths exceeding 80 ksi can be expected from the nickel weld metal in the as-welded condition.