Effect of GTAW welding current on the quality of 304L Austenitic Stainless steel using ER316L

304L is one of the most used stainless-steels, usually welded by ER308L but in some cases welding is performed by ER316L filler according to client specifications or non-nuclear repair. This work focuses on pipes TP304L, with 3mm and 5mm thickness parent metal welded by filler metal ER316L using three welding current levels (75A-105A-135A). The study revealed that no discontinuity in the weld occurred for the three welding current levels and the strength of the weld metal was higher than the base metal. The highest tensile strength for 3mm and 5mm thickness samples were obtained at 105A.The microstructure examination showed that all samples consisted of ferrite and austenite microstructure. The average dendrite length and spacing increased with increasing heat input where delta ferrite content decreased with increasing heat input for most of the welded samples. Micro hardness of the welded metal zones for most of the welded samples was lower than the heat affected zone (HAZ) and parent metal (PM).