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Investigation on susceptibility to hydrogen-assisted cracking in HSLA steel weldments

Journal Article · · Welding Journal (Miami); (United States)
OSTI ID:6658396
; ;  [1]
  1. Beijing Polytechnic Univ. (China). Dept. of Metallic Materials Science and Engineering

The effect of martensitic transformation stress on hydrogen-assisted cracking (HAC) initiation and propagation in high-strength steel HY-80 weldments was investigated using a new theory of martensite phase transformation. The results calculated by a numerical computing program specially set up showed that the martensitic transformation stress was not uniformly distributed along the boundary of the martensite lath. The magnitude and nonhomogeneity of the distribution of the phase transformation stress increased significantly with the increase in prior austenite grain size. Consequently, there was a region of maximum phase transformation stress at the frontier of the fastest growing direction of martensite lath, and the susceptibility to HAC in this region increased rapidly. It was found that the behavior of the initiation and propagation of HAC in augmented-strain cracking test specimens of high-strength HY-80 steel welded with the flux cored arc welding process (FCAW) correlates with the calculated results.

OSTI ID:
6658396
Journal Information:
Welding Journal (Miami); (United States), Journal Name: Welding Journal (Miami); (United States) Vol. 73:12; ISSN 0043-2296; ISSN WEJUA3
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English