In this paper, the effects of overlay welding of S355J2N steel were studied. We examined how the technological advantages of overlay welding can be taken into account to improve the service lifetime and applicability of components made from traditional S355J2N structural steel during the planning step. Increasing the service life of structures exposed to environmental influences is essential, especially on surfaces exposed to abrasive and chemical corrosion. The direct aim of the investigation was to present a comprehensive picture of technological advantages of the corrosion-resistant overlay welding on steel S355J2N. We mainly analysed experiments with powder-coated wire electrodes which are based on protective gas and robot technology usage. With various mechanical tests, we searched for the minimum number of layers that provides sufficient protection against corrosion. The aim of this paper is to present achieved results during development of a welding technology of a reliably functioning product with increased corrosion resistance.

In the last decade, hardened fine-grained plate components have been used in turnouts and crossings on Western European urban rail networks, as well as in Hungary, in place of traditional rail or Hadfield steel components. The first crossing was built in Hungary in 2016. These components have many advantages, such as the ease with which they can be machined in the factory; they are less prone to cracking than rails due to their block design (high load-bearing cross-section); however, their weldability to rails and lifetime repairability present numerous challenges for railway turnout manufacturers and operators. There have been numerous studies on joint and repair welding of rails and hardened finegrained materials, but there is little or no information available on joint welding with manual arc welding of these two different materials. The current study aims to investigate the welds of coated electrode manual arc welding of rails (R260 and R400 HT) and hardened finegrained plates (in this case, Hardox 500) under non-laboratory conditions while strictly adhering to technological specifications, in comparison to manual arc welding of rails and Hadfield steels. Laboratory tests included raw material chemical composition, macroscopic tests, micro-hardness measurements, tensile, shear, and bending tests.