HAZ hydrogen cracking of 9Cr-0.5 Mo-1.7W steels

Advanced creep-resistant steels have been developed to meet the demanding requirements of fossil power plants that strive to improve the generation efficiency by enhancing the steam temperature and pressure. These are ferritic steels with nominal chromium content ranging from 2% to 12% with significant addition of tungsten besides Nb, V, and N in small level. One of the candidate materials is 9Cr-0.5Mo-1.7W steel, developed for steam circuit components of tubes, and pipes of power plants for an operating temperature of 600A degrees C. Hydrogen cracking is a major issue in welding of this steel, due to solid-state metallurgical transformations that lead to untempered martensite in the HAZ of weld joint. The hydrogen cracking does not occur below a threshold stress level called critical cracking stress. The critical stress for cracking in this steel was determined by carrying out implant weldability tests using shielded metal arc welding process for various levels of diffusible hydrogen in the weld metal and an empirical model relating levels of diffusible hydrogen and time taken for cooling from 800A degrees C to 500A degrees C to the critical stress has been developed. Results of current study also showed that residual diffusible hydrogen plays a major role in deciding hydrogen cracking than the initial diffusible hydrogen in the weld metal.