Thermomechanical history measurements on Type 304L stainless steel pipe girth welds

摘要

Thermal and strain histories were recorded for three 40-cm-diameter (16 inch), Type 304L stainless steel (SS), schedule 40 (1.27 cm thickness) pipe girth welds. Two weld groove preparations were standard V grooves while the third was a narrow groove configuration. The welding parameters for the three pipe welds simulated expected field practice as closely as possible. The narrow gap weld was completed in four continuous passes while the other two welds required six and nine (discontinuous) passes, due to the use of different weld wire diameters. Thermomechanical history measurements were taken on the inner counterbore surface, encompassing the weld centerline and heat-affected zone (HAZ), as well as 10 cm of inner counterbore surface on either side of the weld centerline; a total of 47 data acquisition instruments were used for each weld. These instruments monitored: (1) weld shrinkages parallel to the pipe axis; (2) surface temperatures; (3) surface strains parallel to weld centerline; and (4) radial deformations. Results show that the weld and HAZ experienced cyclic deformation in the radial direction during welding, indicating that the final residual stress distribution in multi-pass pipe weldments is not axisymmetric. Measured radial and axial deformations were smaller for the narrow gap groove than for the standard V grooves, suggesting that the narrow gap groove weldment may have lower residual stress levels than the standard V groove weldments. This study provides the experimental database and a guideline for further computational modeling work.