Kazushi Onishi

Development of 7%Ni-TMCP Steel Plate for LNG Storage Tanks

Demand of natural gas continues to increase in the recent years due to the rise of environmental issue and the drastic increase of crude oil price. These events led to the increase of constructions of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) storage tanks worldwide. The inner tank material for above ground LNG storage tanks have mostly been made of a 9% nickel steel plate over the last 50 years as it has excellent mechanical properties under the cryogenic temperature of −160deg-C. During this period, the LNG storage tanks made of 9%Ni steel plate have been operated safely at the many LNG export and import terminals in the world. Meanwhile, technologies of steel making, refinement, design, analysis, welding and inspection have been improved significantly and enabled enlarging volumetric capacity of the tank 2–3 times. There was a tendency for nickel price to increase in recent years. In such a circumstance lowering Ni content has focused attention on the 9%Ni steel as nickel is an expensive and valuable rare metal and a 7%Ni steel plate was eventually researched and developed by optimizing the chemical compositions and applying Thermo-Mechanical Controlled Process (TMCP). As a result, it was demonstrated that 7%Ni-TMCP steel plate had excellent physical and mechanical properties equivalent to those of 9%Ni steel plate. In order to evaluate fitness of the 7%Ni-TMCP steel plate and its weld for LNG storage tanks a series of testing was conducted. Several different plate thicknesses, i.e. 6,10,25,40 and 50 mm, were chosen to run large scale fracture toughness tests including duplex ESSO tests, cruciform wide plate tests as well as small scale tests. It was concluded that the 7%Ni-TMCP steel plate warrants serious consideration for use in LNG storage tanks. This paper reports details of the research and development of the 7%Ni-TMCP steel plate.Copyright

Application of 7%Ni-TMCP Steel Plate to Large Scale LNG Storage Tank

Increase of natural gas demand has led the increase of constructions of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) storage tanks worldwide. The inner tank material for above ground LNG storage tanks has mostly been made of 9% nickel steel plate over the last 50 years as it has excellent mechanical properties under the cryogenic temperature of −160deg.C. During this period, the LNG storage tanks made of 9%Ni steel plate have safely been operated. Meanwhile, technologies of steel making, welding, design, construction and inspection of 9%Ni steel plate have been improved significantly and enable us to achieve enlarging volumetric capacity of the tank to 2–3 times.It is known that nickel is an expensive and valuable rare metal and recent tendency of increase in nickel price has influenced the price of 9%Ni steel plate. In such a circumstance lowering the Ni content would save cost and this has led to an extensive research and development resulting in the 7%Ni-TMCP steel plate. This 7%Ni-TMCP steel plate developed is characterized by adjustment of chemical compositions and application of suitable Thermo-Mechanical Controlled Process (TMCP).In order to evaluate fitness of the 7%Ni-TMCP steel plate and its weld for LNG storage tanks, a series of testing was conducted. Several different kinds of plate thicknesses from 6 to 50 mm were chosen to run large scale fracture toughness tests such as duplex ESSO tests, cruciform wide plate tests as well as small scale tests. As a result it was demonstrated that the 7%Ni-TMCP steel plate had a quite excellent resistance to brittle fracture of the inner tank steel and its welds exposed to the cryogenic temperature of LNG.Furthermore, other various issues such as extent of applicable heat input, repair weld, difference of physical constants and so on were investigated and found acceptable.In Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) approved to apply this steel to new LNG storage tanks of Osaka Gas. After that Osaka Gas decided to construct a new full containment LNG storage tank applying 7%Ni-TMCP steel in Senboku terminal 1. The capacity is 230,000m3, which is larger than present largest scale of 180,000m3 in Japan. The construction is planned to start in September 2012 and be completed by November 2015.Copyright

Evaluation of the effect of strength mismatch in undermatched joints on the static tensile strength of welded joints by considering microstructure

High-tensile strength 950 MPa steel, HT950, which is steel used in penstocks, was developed to provide two vital properties: fracture arrest to stop brittle fracture and high weldability. This steel has been already used for penstocks in some hydropower plants in Japan. To widely apply high-tensile strength steels in penstocks in the future, fewer restrictions against their welding conditions such as pre-heat and post-heat temperature controls are required. One proposed solution is to undermatch the strength of the filler metal to that of the base material. This allows less pre-heating, or no pre-heating at all, and the use of conventional rod and process management is easier. Previous studies have shown that there are softening conditions under which the strength of the joint can be considered as that of the base material. However, the shape and distribution of the soft region are assumed to be ideal. In this study, the method for calculating the change of the strength in heat-affected zone (HAZ) during the welding process is discussed. Then, the influence of the strength distribution of HAZ and welded zone to the strength of the joint is investigated by a wide plate test in both experiment and elastic–plastic analysis. Applicability of undermatched joints to penstock fabrication is considered by these discussions. As a result, it is concluded that the Vickers hardness distribution in the HAZ can be estimated by the method which is proposed in this study and the strength of the under-matched joints is high enough in both experiment and analysis in which the Vickers hardness distribution is considered. From these conclusions, the applicability of undermatched joints, of which the weld metal is the HT570 class, to penstock fabrication is conformed.

Development of a new steel plate possessing self-suppression effect for fatigue-crack propagation and properties of welded joints

Abstract With welded steel structures, fatigue-cracks usually occur at the welded joints. Therefore the structures are designed to reduce stress at the points where fatigue damage is expected. It is, however, impossible to totally prevent fatigue-cracks from occurring. Moreover, in a complex structure, there is a possibility that a simple method such as visual inspection does not enable the detection of the occurrence of a fatigue-crack at the welded joint at an early stage, and hence it can have grown into a long crack by the time it is discovered.