Philippe Thibaux

Effect of niobium on the microstructure and mechanical properties of hot rolled microalloyed steels after recrystallization-controlled rolling

Microalloyed steels with increased strength and ductility are of considerable interest for use in the ‘as-hotrolled’ condition. However, there is a lack of information on their microstructural characteristics and mechanical properties. Seven different microalloyed steels with variable Nb and C content were evaluated in this work. First, characterization of the microstructure by optical and scanning and transmission electron microscopy was performed. Different microstructural constituents and grain size distributions were observed, and three different groups of precipitates were identified. For all steels, tensile tests were performed and ductile-to-brittle transition temperatures were determined. Finally, the complex interplay between microstructural features and mechanical properties was analyzed to determine structure-property relations for the steels under evaluation.

Induction welding and heat treatment of steel pipes: evolution of crystallographic texture detrimental to toughness

Abstract Steel welding using induction heating to produce pipelines is found to have lower toughness at the weld junction than the base material, even after a heat treatment which reaustenitises the weld zone. Detailed crystallographic characterisation indicates that the poor toughness is due to the crystallographically coarse grains present after welding; the coarse scale is not visible using just optical microscopy. The post-weld heat treatment does not improve the situation at the weld junction, because the detrimental crystallographic characteristics are reproduced on cooling.

Crystallographic Texture of Induction-Welded and Heat-Treated Pipeline Steel

Large-diameter steel pipes are produced by induction seam-welding followed by induction-assisted heat treatment. The microstructure and distribution of crystal orientations have been studied and related to the mechanical properties of the welded regions. The welding and heat-treatment process leads to a microstructure, a simple observation of which can not explain the observed variations in toughness in the vicinity of the welding joint, because the crystallographic grain size, which represents the scale of similarly oriented adjacent grains, is much coarser than the ordinary grain size. Furthermore, heating the affected zone into the austenite phase field followed by cooling does not completely eliminate the coarse regions of similarly oriented grains. The consequences of this on mechanical properties are discussed.

Influence of Rolling Temperature and Cooling Rate on Microstructure and Properties of Pipeline Steel Grades

Thermo-mechanical control processing (TMCP) is a powerful tool for development of high strength low alloy (HSLA) steels. The understanding of the effect of process parameters on the microstructure of these steels is a key aspect for the optimization of their mechanical properties. The influence of the rolling temperatures and the cooling conditions on the texture, strength and toughness of HSLA steel was investigated. Two stage controlled rolling (roughing and finishing) was carried out on a laboratory rolling mill. Four different compositions were rolled by maintaining same roughing conditions but varying the process parameters of the finish rolling, namely, start finish rolling temperature (SFRT), finish rolling and cooling temperatures. Subsequent to rolling, two different cooling routes were used, namely, air-cooling (AC) and accelerated water cooling (ACC). For the ACC route, the plates were subsequently heat treated to simulate coiling. The microstructure and texture obtained before and after each TMCP schedule were characterized quantifying the phases, grain size and texture by means of EBSD and XRD and associated with the mechanical properties. It was found that SFRT has a strong impact on both strength and toughness if the material was air-cooled. Plates rolled at lower temperature showed better strength and toughness than ones rolled at high temperature in both air-cooling and ACC due to grain refinement. However, for the material that was processed through ACC and coiling simulation, the strength increased without any substantial effect on the toughness. These results provide an interesting insight on the industrial processing of HSLA steels.

Determination of CTOD Resistance Curves in SENT Specimens With a Tilted Notch

The Single Edge Notched Tension (SENT) specimen is a common tool for the determination of tearing resistance in pipeline steels and welds. However, it assumes pure mode I crack tip loading, which is unrepresentative for the evaluation of spiral seam weld flaws. To this purpose, the authors have performed SENT tests using specimens with a tilted notch. This paper evaluates experimental techniques to obtain the tearing resistance of such specimens. Mixed-mode crack opening displacement and ductile tearing are successfully measured using digital image correlation and direct current potential drop, respectively. The latter technique involves a calibration on the basis of a thermo-electric finite element model. Tearing resistance tends to increase with increasing notch tilt angle. Based on the limited number of tests performed, tilted notch SENT testing appears to be a promising tool for the assessment of spiral seam weld flaws.

Computation of Stress Concentration Factors for Tubular Joints

Stress concentration factors for tubular joints were computed using solid quadratic elements. The results of the computations are compared with experiments reported in the literature and with expressions reported in the literature and in design codes. An influence of element size and element type was observed, which leads to recommendations regarding element size of four quadratic elements in thickness, which is finer than in different published recommendations. A parametric study was performed, showing that stress concentration factors from the literature are not always conservative, particularly at the crown toe of the chord, while they tend to be overconservative at the chord saddle. The stress concentration factor for the inside of the member was also computed; it is found that it can be close to the stress concentration factor at the weld toe for both the in plane or out of plane bending modes.Copyright

Control of the Austenite Recrystallization in Niobium Microalloyed Steels

The use of heavy gauge steel sheets for structural applications very often requires a combination of high yield strength and adequate toughness. The most cost effective way to realize a high yield strength and a high ductility in a low alloyed steel is grain refinement. In industrial practice, this refinement is realized by controlled processing. This process consists of controlling the slab reheating temperature, applying a large amount of hot deformation below the non-recrystallization temperature (Tnr) and accelerated cooling. A better knowledge of Tnr could optimize the process and the best mechanical properties could be reached against the lowest cost. Tnr can be raised by the addition of microalloying elements such as Nb. Nb can retard the static recrystallization of austenite at low temperatures either by solute drag or by precipitation pinning. In this study, the recrystallization behavior of five Nb-microalloyed model alloys with various Nb contents, was evaluated by double hit compression tests. Further, the precipitation state of the materials was investigated experimentally by Inductively Couples Mass Spectroscopy and X-ray Diffraction. The construction of recrystallization-time-temperature diagrams and precipitation-time-temperature diagrams showed that both mechanisms, i.e. recrystallization and precipitation, strongly influence each other.

Investigations Into the Microstructure–Toughness Relation in High Frequency Induction Welded Pipes

In the present paper, investigations performed on ArcelorMittal X65 linepipe steel in order to understand the effects of high frequency induction (HFI) welding process and in-line post-weld heat treatment on weld properties are described. The factors that potentially can affect weld toughness, such as microstructure, grain size, precipitates, hardness, inclusions, and texture, are evaluated and discussed systematically in order to correlate weld microstructure with toughness of the HFI welded pipes.Copyright

Ductile Fracture Characterization of an X70 Steel: Re-Interpretation of Classical Tests Using the Finite Element Technique

The crack arrest capacity of a linepipe is one of the most important material parameter for such components. In current design codes, it is expressed as the energy absorbed by a CVN impact test. This prescribed impact energy for a given pipeline is typically between 50 and 120J, depending on the grade of the material, the pressure and the dimensions of the pipe. The continuous improvement of steel production has lead to the situation that the impact values achieved in standard pipeline steel production are much larger than 200J for the base material. The question of the significance of these high impact energies can be raised, particularly considering that no correlation has been found between CVN values and crack arrest properties of very high strength materials (X100–X120). In this investigation, instrumented Charpy tests and notched tensile tests were performed on an X70 material. The same tests were also simulated using the finite element method and the Gurson-Tvergaard-Needleman damage model. The combination of supplementary experimental information coming from the instrumentation of the Charpy test and finite element simulations delivers a different insight about the test. It is observed that the crack does not break the sample in 2 parts in ductile mode. After 6–7mm of propagation, the crack deviates and stops. The propagation stops when the crack meets the part of the sample becoming wider due to bending. Finite element simulations proved that it results in a quasi constant force during a displacement of the hammer of almost 10mm. The consequence is that more than 25% of the energy is dissipated in a different fracture mode at the end of the test. Finite element simulations proved also that damage is already occurring at the maximum of the load, but that damage has almost no influence on the load for two-thirds of the displacement at the maximum. In the case of the investigated steel, it means that more than 27J, as often mentioned in standards for avoidance of brittle failure, are dissipated by plastic bending before the initiation of the crack. From the findings of this study, one can conclude that the results of the Charpy test are very sensitive to crack initiation and that only a limited part of the test is meaningful to describe crack propagation. Therefore, it is questionable if the Charpy test is adapted to predict the crack arrest capacity of steels with high crack initiation energy.Copyright

Quantification and microstructural origin of the anisotropic nature of the sensitivity to brittle cleavage fracture propagation for hot-rolled pipeline steels

This work proposes a quantitative relationship between the resistance of hot-rolled steels to brittle cleavage fracture and typical microstructural features, such as microtexture. More specifically, two hot-rolled ferritic pipeline steels were studied using impact toughness and specific quasistatic tensile tests. In drop weight tear tests, both steels exhibited brittle out-of-plane fracture by delamination and by so-called “abnormal” slant fracture, here denoted as “brittle tilted fracture” (BTF). Their sensitivity to cleavage cracking was thoroughly determined in the fully brittle temperature range using round notched bars, according to the local approach to fracture, taking anisotropic plastic flow into account. Despite limited anisotropy in global texture and grain morphology, a strong anisotropy in critical cleavage fracture stress was evidenced for the two steels, and related through a Griffith-inspired approach to the size distribution of clusters of unfavorably oriented ferrite grains (so-called “potential cleavage facets”). It was quantitatively demonstrated that the occurrence of BTF, as well as the sensitivity to delamination by cleavage fracture, is primarily related to an intrinsically high sensitivity of the corresponding planes to cleavage crack propagation across potential cleavage facets.