Meet the technical specifications defined by the designengineering department is a critical factor to haveof a good performance during the normal life cycle of heavy mining equipment. This study was done to determine how the repair process carried out in order to recover structuralcomponents that did not meet the proper quality criteria after the inspection process,can alter the microstructure and the mechanical properties of the product used in the construction of heavy miningequipment.
As the repair process can be donenot only once, but twice and until three times using a manual GMAW process, this study was carried out under controlled conditions and using similar process parameters as those used in the manufacturing process. A set of four specimens were prepared, one without any repair, and the other three with one, two and three repairs. In order to evaluate the sanity of the welded unions and also the materials behavior of each one of the specimens, tensile, microhardness, macroetch, charpy, and metallographic testswere carried out