PROCESSING OF 9 Cr (GRADE 91/92)

MATERIALS

Fabrication aspects of
Cold / hot forming of
tubes and pipes

Maximum Allowable Stress

of Gr91/Gr92 materials
SL
No

Type Minimum Minimum Max allowable stress in MPa

of
Tensile
Yield
materi strength strength At 500 At 550 At 600 At 650
al
MPa
MPa
deg C deg C deg C deg C

Gr22

415

205

80.9

47.7

23.5

Gr91

585

415

126

107

65

28.9

Gr92

620

441

138

126

82

38.6

304

515

205

99.3

93.3

65.4

41.7

Maximum Design
Temperature for different
materials as per IBR
Type of Material

Maximum design
temperature in deg C

Gr22

649

Gr91

649

Gr92

649

TP304

816

Challenges in Fabrication of Grade 91/92?

To achieve its excellent creep strength,

Grade 91/92 requires careful control of:
Chemical composition
Normalizing heat treatment and cooling from normalizing
Tempering
Post weld heat treatment

If the material is not properly heat

treated within defined limits then the
material can become soft or hard
Soft Grade 91/92 has high temperature
strength similar to Grade 9
Hard Grade 91/92 is brittle and
susceptible to cracking

Challenges in Fabrication of Grade 91/92?

Chemistry should be carefully controlled to

ensure good, fabricatable, material.
Ni + Mn has strong influence on lower critical
temperature.
Higher Ni + Mn benefits toughness

Other elements (e.g. Cr and Cu) influence lower

critical temperature but to lesser degree.
Higher N / Al promotes good creep strength.

Chemistry controls should be applied to both

base material and to weld filler metal.
Specific filler metal controls depend somewhat on
application, process and consumable.

Basic welding requirements

As a general rule, materials with Pnumber lower than and including P-4
materials should not be welded
directly to Gr91/92 materials.

Careful heat treatment is key to achieving

properties
Cooling Rate MUST
Exceed 5C/min!

Intercritical Heat.

NORMALIZING RANGE
Lower Critical Temperature
(Chemistry Dependent)

TEMPER

730-770C

200-400C

PWHT

WELD

<150C

Complete Martensite Formation

INTERCRITICAL
"No-Man's Land"

TEMPERING RANGE

730-780C

NORMALIZE

TEMPERATURE

1040-1090C

<150C

TIME

Careful heat treatment is key to achieving

properties
When fabricating Grade 91/92 components, various heat
treatments may be needed, if not performed properly they
can result in significant serviceability concerns.
- Improper normalizing
- Inter critical heating
- Over tempering
- Under tempering

Careful heat treatment is key to achieving

properties
Grade 91/92 is purchased
from the mill in the normalized
and tempered condition.
Normalizing & tempering is required in the shop after:
- Cold / Warm strain levels exceed ~20% (2.5 R/D bends).
- Hot / Warm working above lower critical temperature.
- Cold pressing on components designed to operate in the
Temperature range 540 -600 and > 600 Deg C.
- The post weld heat treatment has exceeded the lower
critical temperature.

Careful heat treatment is key to achieving

Temperatures too low
properties
- Good Hardness, poor creep strength

Inadequate time
- Incomplete solutionization of carbides

Slow cooling from normalizing

- Soft ferrite structure
- Very poor creep strength

Tempering Potential problems?

Heating above A1
- Quick cool(Refer Fig) increase in
hardness
Un tempered martensite
May not detect

- Slow cool low hardness (<180 HV)

Ferrite structure

- Poor creep strength in either case

Overtemper
- Potential low hardness starting material
- Multiple PWHT required for complex
components
- Low creep strength if hardness too low
Furnace uniformity, control very important
- More than one T/C required!
Many cases of soft Grade 91 reported

Ruptured T91 heated

above A1

Under Tempering?
Temperatures below the specified minimum for tempering
will result in under tempering.
The hardness will not be reduced sufficiently increasing
risk of brittle fracture and stress corrosion cracking.
The creep strength of the material will not be fully
developed.

 All hot forming operations MUST be

followed by a full N&T heat treatment
- Otherwise poor creep strength

Warm forming permitted

- Example: hot adjustments
- Extreme care needed to not
exceed A1
- Limited strains

Cold pressing, swaging must be

followed by N&T if material is used in
the creep regime
- Uncontrolled, reversed strains

Strain limits on cold bending of

tubes
- Strains > 20% require post-bend
N&T

What is Cold / Hot Forming?

ASME Section I PG-20 defines . (PG20 added
in ASME 2010)
COLD FORMING OF CREEP STRENGTH
ENHANCED FERRITIC STEELS
Cold forming is defined as any method that is
performed at a temperature below 1,300F
(705C) and produces strain in the material.
The calculations of cold strains shall be made
in accordance with PG-19.
The cold-formed areas of pressure-retaining
components manufactured of creep strength
enhanced ferritic alloys shall be heat treated
as listed in Table PG-20.

How is Forming Strain calculated?

ASME Section I PG-19 defines .
Forming strains shall be calculated as follows:
(1)Cylinders formed from plate

Where
Rf = mean radius after forming;
Ro = original mean radius (equal to infinity for a flat plate)
t = nominal thickness of the plate, pipe, or tube before forming
Added in ASME 2010 Edition
PG-19.1 When the forming strains cannot be calculated as shown
in PG-19, the manufacturer shall have the responsibility to
determine the maximum forming strain.
PG-19.2 For flares, swages, or upsets, heat treatment in
accordance with Table PG-19 shall apply, regardless of the

How is Forming Strain calculated?

ASME Section I PG-19 defines .
Forming strains shall be calculated as follows:
(2) Spherical or dished heads formed from plate

(3) Tube and pipe bends

Where R = nominal bending radius to center-line of pipe or

tube; Rf = mean radius after forming; Ro = original mean
radius (equal to infinity for a flat plate)
r = nominal outside radius of pipe or tube; t = nominal
thickness of the plate, pipe, or tube before forming

TABLE PG 19 ASME
Grade

UNS No.

Design
Temp
Exceeding
Deg C

91

K9090 540
1
540

92

K9246 540
0
540

But
Deg C

And
Forming
Strain

Required HeatTreatment When

Design
Temperature
and Forming
Strain Limits are
Exceeded

Design Temp
Exceeding
Deg C

And
Forming
Strains

600 >25
%

600

>20% Normalize and

temper [Note (1)]

600 >5%
to
25
%

600

>5%
Post-bend heat
to
treatment [Note
20% (2)][Note (4)]

600 >25
%

600

>20% Normalize and

temper [Note (1)]

600 >5%
to
25
%

600

>5%
Post-bend heat
to
treatment [Note
20% (2)][Note (4)]

TABLE PG 19 ASME
GENERAL NOTE: The limits shown are for cylinders formed from
plates, spherical or dished heads formed from plate, and tube
and pipe bends. The forming strain limits tabulated in the table
shall be divided by two if PG-19.1 is applied. For any material
formed at 1,300F (705C) or above, and for cold swages, flares,
or upsets, normalizing and tempering is required regardless of
the amount of strain.
NOTES:
(1)Normalization and tempering shall be performed in accordance
with the requirements in the base material specification, and
shall not be performed locally. The material shall either be heat
treated in its entirety, or the cold strained area (including the
transition to the unstrained portion) shall be cut away from the
balance of the tube or component and heat treated separately or
replaced.
Normalizing temperature shall be
(2) Post bend heat treatments shall be performed at 1,350F to
1,425F (730C to 775C) for 1 hr/in. (1 hr/25 mm) or 30 min
minimum. Alternatively, a normalization and temper in
accordance with the requirements in the base material

TABLE PG 19 ASME
(3)
For materials with greater than 5% strain but less than or
equal to 25% strain with design temperatures less than or
equal to 1,115F (600C), if a portion of the component is
heated above the heat treatment temperature allowed
above, one of the following actions shall be performed:
(a) The component in its entirety must be renormalized
and tempered.
(b) The allowable stress shall be that for Grade 9 material
(i.e., SA-213 T9, SA-335 P9, or equivalent product
specification) at the design temperature, provided that
portion of the component that was heated to a
temperature exceeding the maximum holding temperature
is subjected to a final heat treatment within the
temperature range and for the time required in Note (2)
above. The use of this provision shall be noted on the
Manufacturers Data Report.
(4)

Forming methods

Hot Pressing
Squeezing
sizing

Hot Bending
Hot adjustment to shape
Cold Pressing

Swaging
Pointing
Squeezing
Sizing

Cold Bending

Pressing

Swaging (reverse the

operation is sizing)

Bending machines

Bending machines

Squeezing operation
Squeezing is
bending of tight
radius bends
which is R/D
<=1 where R is
the bending
radius and D is
the Nominal
Diameter of the
tube.

Pointing operation

When Hot/ Cold bending to be

selected
(Mannesmann
Guidelines)

Cold bending is advisable when the nominal OD

of the tube/pipe is around 152mm.
Hot bending is advisable for the tubes and
pipes with nominal OD above 152mm.
Hot bending of tubes is generally performed
only in the case of very small radius i.e.,
R<=1.5. Also in many cases it is a two step
bending process a) cold forming b) hot forming.
Hot forming is advisable to be carried out
between 1000-1100 deg C. Temperature range
of 850-950 deg C is to be avoided.

Precautions to be adopted for Gr

91/Gr 92 after forming
After hot forming, the temperature shall be
brought down to below 100 deg C
(Thereotically EPRI says this temperature is
121 deg C),subsequently normalizing
operation shall be completed with 72
hours .
After completion of normalizing, the
temperature shall be brought down to
below 100 deg C subsequently tempering
shall be completed with 72 hours .
Normalizing and tempering shall be done
encompassing the entire component.

Precautions to be adopted for Gr

91/Gr 92 after forming
Till the heat treatment of Normalizing and
tempering is completed, the components
shall be free from any of the following.
Impact loads
Spot thermal loads (spot heating)
Shall not come in contact with moisture(like
water or lubricants used for UT or hardness).
No hardness testing which provides indenter
load.
No welding shall be carried out.

Tests to ensure Correctness of Heat

Treatment
Hardness
requirements
It shall not exceed
the hardness
limits of the base material
specification (181Hv -265Hv).
If the hardness observed is above than the base material
specification, it shall be re-tempered to bring down the
hardness within the acceptable limit.
If the hardness observed is below than the base material
specification, it shall be re-normalized and re-tempered to bring
down the hardness within the acceptable limit.
For carrying out sound hardness testing, the surface shall be
clean and free from foreign materials. The area to be tested
shall be ground suitable and shall be rested with proper
support for effective hardness checking.
Generally for tubes, no hardness test is mandatory since the
thickness is less and during tempering, structure will be easily
softened in order to lower the hardness requirements
compared to pipes which have higher thickness.
When checking for low thickness pipes or tubes, machines
similar to MIC 10 is advisable. For pipes with Higher thickness,
Equitop hardness tester can be used

Tests to ensure Correctness of Heat

Treatment
Insitu- Micro requirements

It is advisable to carry out insitu micro test

for 3 replicas in one bend per heat
treatment batch for pipes. It is required in
order to confirm the adequacy of heat
treatment carried.
It is not mandatory to carry out insitu
micro for tubes because of lower
thickness, heat gradient across the
thickness will be less which enables
uniform structure.

Thank You