Effect of Welding Thermal Cycle on Microstructure and Pitting Corrosion Property of Multi-pass Weldment of Super-duplex Stainless Steel

Super-duplex stainless steels (SDSS) have a good balance of mechanical property and corrosion resistance when they consist of approximately equal amount of austenite and ferrite. The SDSS needs to avoid the detrimental phases such as sigma(${\sigma}$), chi(${\chi}$), secondary austenite(${\gamma}2$), chromium carbide & nitride and to maintain the ratio of ferrite & austenite phase as well known. However, the effects of the subsequent weld thermal cycle were seldom experimentally studied on the micro-structural variation of weldment & pitting corrosion property. Therefore, the present study investigated the effect of the subsequent thermal cycle on the change of weld microstructure and pitting corrosion property at $40^{\circ}C$. The thermal history of root side was measured experimentally and the change of microstructure of weld root & the weight loss by pitting corrosion test were observed as a function of the thermal cycle of each weld layer. The ferrite contents of root weld were reduced with the subsequent weld thermal cycles. The pitting corrosion was occurred in the weld root region in case of the all pitted specimen & in the middle weld layer in some cases. And the weight loss by pitting corrosion was increased in proportional to the time exposed at high temperature of the root weld and also by the decrease of ferrite content. The subsequent weld thermal cycles destroy the phase balance of ferrite & austenite at the root weld. Conclusively, It is thought that as the more subsequent welds were added, the more the phase balance of ferrite & austenite was deviated from equality, therefore the pitting corrosion property was deteriorated by galvanic effect of the two phases and the increase of 2nd phases & grain boundary energy.

슈퍼 듀플렉스 스테인리스강 다층용접부의 미세조직 및 공식(Pitting Corrosion)에 미치는 용접열사이클의 영향