• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.21-32
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• 1993

A cracking failure of a austenitic stainless steel elbow in a naphtha cracking line in a petrochenmical plant occurred, resulting in leakage of organic compound flowing inside the elbow. Due to the failure, emergency shutdown of the plant was enforced to repair the troubled part of the line. The repair cost as well as production loss during the unscheduled plant shutdown has cost the company a great amount of financial loss. In this studies, a failure analysis of the cracked elbow was performed using NDT, chemical analysis, microstructural analysis including optical microscopy as well as scanning electron microscopy with EPMA, mechanical testings such as tensile testing, hardness testing and Charphy impact test fractography. The results indicated that several problems such as a welding defect and presence of a detrimental phase which was found to be relate to improper postforming heat treatment process was identified and the failure was concluded to be due to a low temperature embrittlement of the defect-containing elbows.