WELDING METALLURGY OF NICKEL STEEL

Andre Yosi

1606842814

1. Introduction
Welding is an important metal joining process used for fabrication of materials in which
localized coalescence is obtained by heating the material to a suitable temperature, with or
without application of pressure heating. Welding is found to be the most common,
economical and efficient way to join metals permanently. The most common processes used
for welding of hard and high strength alloys include gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) or
tungsten inert gas welding (TIG), gas metal arc welding (GMAW), shielded metal arc
welding (SMAW), electron beam welding (EBW), laser beam welding (LBW) and friction
stir welding (FSW).

2. Welding Process of Nickel Steel

Currently, 9% Ni steel is widely used as cryogenic equipment or containers in LNG ships.
The Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW) and the Submerged Arc Welding (SAW) are the
traditional welding methods for this material in industrial filed. In recent years, some novel
welding methods are developed to improve product efficient. Khodir et al. (2014) welded
9%Ni steel with autogenous electron beam welding. They reported that the austenitic grains
were rapidly coarsened and solidified into cellular dendritic when Ni content exceeded 4%.
Wu et al. (2015) used CO2 laser to produce the dissimilar joints between 9% Ni steel and
stainless steel. They found that some carbides distributed at grain boundaries in weld metal.
However, electron beam welding or laser welding has not been widely used for 9% Ni steel
in practical production. Meanwhile, the Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) shows prominent
advantages. It has good efficiency and adaptability, and its applications in LNG tanks showed
good performance. For the FCAW weld of 9%Ni steel serving in harsh environment, its
cryogenic fracture toughness was critical to product safety. Currently, the microstructure and
performance of 9%Ni steel joint made by FCAW are still not investigated fully.

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Inconel 625, as typical filler wire of Ni–Cr–Mo–Nb alloy, is the common choice of 9% Ni
steel welding. The weld metal mainly consists of austenite, as well as a small amount of
precipitates, when nickel alloy is used as filler material. Some researcher were carried out on
the effects of precipitates in the weld metal of nickel based alloy. Cieslak et al. (1986)
investigated the melting and solidification behavior of Ni–Cr–Mo–Nb alloy during gas
tungsten arc welding process. They found that the weld metal was made up of γ/NbC
eutectic-like constituent, as well as Nb enriched γ/Laves eutectic-like constituent.
Cleiton Carvalho Silva and Miranda (2012) studied the deposited metal of Ni–Cr–Mo–Nb
alloy in TIG cold wire welding. They identified that the precipitated phases were Laves phase
and complex carbide particles. They also (2013) reported that the eutectic Laves phase, rich
in Nb, formed at boundaries of dendrites because of the Nb microsegregation. Özgün et al.,
(2015) investigated the TCP phases and carbide using PIM. They reported that the fracture
toughness was sensitive to the number of the precipitated phases. A large amount of carbide
or TCP particles in weld metal would accelerate the crack formation and propagation. Qin et
al. (2008) found that the primary Metal Carbide (MC), especially the carbide located at grain
boundary, increased noticeably the incidence of cracks. Most researches in this field focused
on the mechanism at the elevated temperature. The lack of attention to the performance of
weld metal in cryogenic environment was common because austenite has no ductile-brittle
transition. However, the precipitated phases significantly affect the low temperature
performance of weld metal. Khourshid and Ghanem (2013) reported that welding parameters
were critical for the low temperature toughness of 9%Ni steel welded joint made by SMAW.
Soon (2016) investigated the effects of precipitates on impact toughness by Charpy test at
−196 °C.They found that Laves phases provided a preferential site for crack initiation and
propagation. The performance degradation of weld metal had close relationship with the size
and volume percentage of Laves particles. Comparing to SMAW electrode or solid wire, the
filler wire of FCAW has higher contents of alloying elements including Nb, Ti and Mo. From
this point of view, influences of precipitated phases deserve more attention when FCAW is
used.

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3. Mechanical Properties
It is well known that nickel is beneficial to cryogenic properties of low carbon steel weld
metals such as tensile strength, fatigue limit, and fracture toughness through the reduction of
ductile-to-brittle transition temperature. The effect of Ni content on the impact toughness of
9% Ni steel weld metals produced by electron beam welding processes. They found that
impact toughness remarkably increased by an increase of Ni content. The influence of Ni
addition on fracture toughness of tempered structural steels. They found that increasing
nickel content from 0.35% to 4.00% decreased the concentration of ἐ carbide in steels
microstructures which in turn improved the toughness of weld metals. This beneficial effect
of Ni on cryogenic properties of low carbon steel alloys encouraged many researchers to
investigate the role of Ni for other grades of steel weld metals. However, recent studies
carried out on low carbon martensitic, carbon–manganese and low alloy steels weld metals
showed that the addition of Ni could be beneficial or detrimental to impact toughness
depending on the final microstructures formed in the weld metals. For examples, The effect
of Ni content from 4.4% to 7.6% on the impact toughness of weld metal of low carbon
martensitic steels produced by shielded metal arc welding (SMAW) process. It found that the
impact toughness initially increased with Ni content up to 5.21%, while further increase in Ni
content up to 7.6% has significantly reduced toughness, due to the formation of massive
ferrite structure. The effects of Ni and Mo contents on the impact toughness of an API-
HSLA-70 steel weld metals deposited by submerged arc welding process (SAW). It found
that the impact toughness decreased with an increasing Ni content from 0.17% to 3.5%,
while addition of Mo up to 0.88% remarkably reduced the detrimental effect of nickel due to
increased amounts of acicular ferrite in the structure. The effect of three different levels of Ni
content 3%, 7% and 9% at two Mn contents of 0.5% and 2.0% on the microstructure and
impact toughness for 0.5 Cr, 0.6 Mo, 0.05 C% high strength steel weld metals, deposited by a
SMAW process. They found that the impact toughness of weld metals decreased with an
increase in Ni content when Mn content was 2.0%. The adverse effect of Ni was noticed
when Mn content was 0.5%. They suggested that the reduction in impact toughness with Ni
content is related to the formation of coalesced bainite in the microstructure. The effect of
different levels of Mn and Ni contents on the microstructures and impact toughness of two
different steel alloys weld metals, deposited by metal-cored wire with Ar–2%O2 shielding gas

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and shielded metal arc welding processes, respectively. Kang et al. reported that the optimum
values of impact toughness were achieved when the contents of Mn and Ni of low carbon
steel weld metals were 0.5–1.0% and 4–5%, respectively, while Zhang et al. suggested 0.6–
1.4% Mn and 1–3.7% Ni for low alloy C–Mn–Ni weld metals.

Nickel enlarges the austenite region in the Fe–C phase diagram which enables some of
austenite to remain at room temperature without transformation to bainite or martensite
structures. The presence of a proper amount of retained austenite in the structures of some
types of high strength low alloy steels may be considered to be an advanced solution for
improving toughness and hydrogen embrittlement.

It is well known that the welding process has a great effect on the microstructures and
mechanical properties of the weld metals.Welding of thick high strength steel alloys plates
(P10 mm thick) used for pressure, reactor vessels and many industrial applications by using
conventional arc welding processes require many passes with precise controlling of
preheating, interpassing temperatures during welding and post weld heat treatment. Electron
beam welding process (EBW) has ability to complete a weld in a single pass without using
filler metals, irrespective of material thickness [15,16]. Welding heat input can be minimized
which in turn reduced the distortion of welded joints.

4. Microstructure Observation

The wide variation in microstructures and mechanical properties obtained for weld is related
to the fact that the mother element (iron) possesses allotropic forms. Alloying elements that
change the sequences of allotropic forms of iron would have a direct influence on steel
properties. The results mentioned above indicate that variations in prior austenitic grain size,
microstructures inside the grains and impact toughness with increasing Ni content are quiet
significant. Once nickel content has exceeded 4%, prior austenitic grains are dramatically
coarsened with enrichments of interdendritic regions, rather than the dendritic core regions,
by Ni, Mn and Mo.

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References

Y.Wu,. Yan Cai, Dawei Sun, Junjie Zhu, Yixiong Wu. Microstructure and properties of
high-power laser welding of SUS304 to SA553 for cryogenic applications. Journal of
Material Processing Technology 225 (2815) 56-66

Khodir, S., Shibayanagi, T., Takahashi, M., Abdel-Aleem, H., Ikeuchi, K., 2014.
Microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of high strength 3–9% Ni steel
alloys weld metals produced by electron beam welding. Mater. Des. 60, 391–400.

W. Mu, Yuzhang Li, Yan Ci, Min Wang. Cryogenic fracture toughness of 9%Ni steel flux
cored arc welds. Journal of Materials Processing Tech. 252 (2018) 804–812.

Cleiton Carvalho Silva, C.R.M.A., Miranda, J.P.F., 2012. Metallurgical aspects of dissimilar
weld overlays of inconel 625 nickel based superalloys. Soldagem Inspeção 17,251–263.

Kim SH, Kang CY, Bang KS. Weld metal impact toughness of electron beam welded 9% Ni
steel. J Mater Sci 2001; 36 :1197-200.

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