• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.284-292
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• 2020

In this study, hydrogen charging was conducted for API X70 steel by the electro-chemical hydrogen charging method. Right after hydrogen was diffused from the specimen surface to the inside of the X70, the small punch tests and hydrogen concentration analysis was conducted within 5 minutes. Hydrogen was analyzed by melting the whole specimen and detect the gas after melting. Mechanical properties were measured by the small punch (SP) testing. Fracture surface and specimen surface were observed using scanning electron microscope. Three tests were repeated for study sensitivity of the SP test results under a same charging condition. It was observed that the variation of the maximum load, SP displacement at failure, hydrogen concentration as the charging period was not much in the case of X70 as the other steel such as Inconel. It can be argued that X70 base metal may have high hydrogen damage resistance and hydrogen diffusion in the base metal would not cause much embrittlement. Limitations of the SP test with 0.5 mm thickness for hydrogen damage test for X70 were discussed.

• Metals and materials international
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.1221-1231
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• 2018

The effect of strain aging on tensile behavior and properties of API X60, X70, and X80 pipeline steels was investigated in this study. The API X60, X70, and X80 pipeline steels were fabricated by varying alloying elements and thermomechanical processing conditions. Although all the steels exhibited complex microstructure consisting of polygonal ferrite (PF), acicular ferrite, granular bainite (GB), bainitic ferrite (BF), and secondary phases, they had different fractions of microstructures depending on the alloying elements and thermomechanical processing conditions. The tensile test results revealed that yielding behavior steadily changed from continuous-type to discontinuous-type as aging temperature increases after 1% pre-strain. After pre-strain and thermal aging treatment in all the steels, the yield and tensile strengths, and yield ratio were increased, while the uniform elongation and work hardening exponent were decreased. In the case of the X80 steel, particularly, the decrease in uniform elongation was relatively small due to many mobile dislocations in PF, and the increase in yield ratio was the lowest because a large amount of harder microstructures such as GB, BF, and coarse secondary phases effectively enhanced work hardening.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.81-86
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• 2004

The sulfide stress corrosion cracking (SSCC) resistance of API X70 grade steel weldment has been studied using SSCC test in NACE TM-O177 method A. Also, microstructures and hardness distribution of weldment was investigated. The microstructure of SAW joint composed ferrite, pearlite and some MA constituent. Instead of hardening in CGHAZ, softening on the HAZ near base metal occurred. The low carbon TMCP type steel used for SAW showed softening behaviour in the HAZ adjacent to base metal, which was known to be closely related with the SOHIC (stress oriented hydrogen induced cracking). The SSC testing revealed that the API X70 SAW weld was suitable for sour service, satisfying the NACE requirements. By suppressing softening in the ICHAZ region, the SSCC resistance of low carbon TMCP steel welded joints could be more improved.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.702-708
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• 2018

This study deals with the effect of microstructure factors on the strain aging properties of API X70 pipeline steels with different microstructure fractions and grain sizes. The grain size and microstructure fraction of the API pipeline steels are analyzed by optical and scanning electron microscopy and electron backscatter diffraction analysis. Tensile tests before and after 1 % pre-strain and thermal aging treatment are conducted to simulate pipe forming and coating processes. All the steels are composed mostly of polygonal ferrite, acicular ferrite, granular bainite, and bainitic ferrite. After 1 % pre-strain and thermal aging treatment, the tensile test results reveal that yield strength, tensile strength and yield ratio increase, while uniform elongation decreases with an increasing thermal aging temperature. The increment of yield and tensile strengths are affected by the fraction of bainitic ferrite with high dislocation density because the mobility of dislocations is inhibited by interaction between interstitial atoms and dislocations in bainitic ferrite. On the other hand, the variation of yield ratio and uniform elongation is the smallest in the steel with the largest grain size because of the decrease in the grain boundary area for dislocation pile-ups and the presence of many dislocations inside large grains after 1 % pre-strain.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.7-12
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• 2014

In this study, API-X100 steel pipes were welded with various kinds of welding wires in the laser-arc hybrid welding process. 10kW fiber laser source was combined to MIG arc welding process. API X-100 steel of base metal was of 16.9mm thickness, and butt welding applied. After welding, full penetration weld was acquired by 1-pass welding. A root porosity and the lack of fusion was observed in some welding conditions. By the mixing the melted wire, acicular ferrite, polygonal ferrite, pro-eutectoid, aligned side plate, and bainite structures were observed at the weld metal. From the observation of hybrid weld, unmixed zone had more Ni and Cr. The unmixed zone was a 1/3 area of the weld metal. As the mechanical test of the hybrid welding, tensile test and impact test applied. From the tensile test, all of the welding except SM70S was fractured at the base metal. The result of the impact test at -30 degree C led 60J~320J of the absorbed energy. The result of the low-absorbed energy might be from the coarse equiaxed structures of the weld metal.

• Journal of Welding and Joining
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.93-101
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• 2014

This study aims to investigate the effect of heat input of outside SAW weld on low temperature toughness($-20^{\circ}C$) of inside SAW weld for API 5L X70 with sour gas resistance. As increasing heat input of the outside weld, low temperature toughness of the inside weld was decreased. Especially, in spite of the same heat input, the value of low temperature toughness was fluctuated. On the basis of fracture and microstructure analysis, the low temperature toughness is correlated with the fracture area ratio of shear lips and four kinds of fracture sections. These sections were divided with size and shape of dimple correlated with grain boundary ferrite and cleavage correlated acicular and polygonal ferrite in grain. Therefore, it was seen that these sections were two of final solidification area in the inside weld and the outside weld, no reheated zone and reheated zone in the inside weld. In conclusion, it is thought that the difference of low temperature toughness at the same heat input is due to the fact that each of impact test specimens could have the different microstructure, even though the notch was machined under the error tolerance of 1mm. It is because the final solidification area of the inside weld is very narrow.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Heat Treatment
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.185-192
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• 2022

Variations in the microstructure and mechanical properties of API X70 steel processed by piping, electrical resistance welding (ERW), and post seam annealing (PSA) are investigated in this study. In the welding zone, some elongated pearlites are formed and grains coarsening occurs due to extra heat caused by the ERW and PSA processes. After the piping, the base metal shows continuous yielding behavior and a decrease in yield and impact strengths because mobile dislocation and back stress are introduced during the piping process. On the other hand, the ERW and PSA processes additionally decreased the impact strength of welding zone at room and low temperatures because some elongated pearlites easily act as crack initiation site and coarse ferrite grains facilitate crack propagation. As a result, the fracture surface of the welding zone specimen tested at low temperature revealed mostly cleavage fracture unlike the base metal specimen.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.351-361
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• 2024

Accurate measurement of K_IC values for gas pipeline steels is important for assessing pipe safety using failure assessment diagrams. As direct measurement of K_IC was impossible for the API X70 pipeline steel, multi-specimen fracture tests were conducted to measure J_IC using three-point bend geometry. The J values were calculated from load-displacement (F-δ) plots, and the associated crack extensions were measured from the fracture surface of test specimens. Valid data points were found for the constructed J-Δa plot resulting in J_IC=356kN/m. More data points were added analytically to the J-Δa plot to increase the number of data points without performing additional experiments for different J-Δa zones where test data was unavailable. Consequently, displacement (δ) and crack-growth (Δa) from multi-specimen tests (with small displacements) were used simultaneously, resulting in the variation of Δa-δ (crack growth law) and δ-Δa obtained for this steel. For new Δa values, corresponding δ values were first calculated from δ-Δa. Then, corresponding J values for the obtained δ values were calculated from the area under the F-δ record of a full-fractured specimen (with large displacement). Given Δa and J values for new data points, the developed J-Δa plot with extra data points yielded a satisfactory estimation of J_IC=345kN/m with only a -3.1% error. This is promising and showed that the developed technique could ease the estimation of J_IC significantly and reduce the time and cost of expensive extra fracture toughness tests.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.109-115
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• 2018

Electrical Resistance Welding (ERW) on a longitudinal seam-welded pipe has been extensively used in oil and gas pipelines. It is well known that the weld zone commonly suffers from grooving corrosion in ERW pipes. In this paper, the grooving corrosion performances of API X65 grade non-sour service (steel-A) and API X70 grade sour gas resistant (steel-B) steel electrical resistance welding pipelines were evaluated. The microstructure of the bondline is composed of coarse polygonal ferrite grains and several elongated pearlites. The elongated pattern is mainly concentrated in the center of the welded area. The grooving corrosion test and electrochemical polarization test were conducted to study the corrosion behavior of the given materials. A V-shaped corrosion groove was found at the center of the fusion zone in both the steel-A and steel-B ERW pipes, as the corrosion rate of the bondlines is higher than that of the base metal. Furthermore, the higher volume fraction of pearlite at the bondline was responsible for the higher corrosion rate at the bondline of both types of steel.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.6
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• pp.373-383
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• 2021

The effect of Cr addition to high Mn steel on flow-accelerated corrosion (FAC) behavior in a neutral aqueous environment was evaluated. For comparison, two types of conventional ferritic steels (API X70 steel and 9% Ni steel) were used. A range of experiments (electrochemical polarization and impedance tests, weight loss measurement, and metallographic observation of corrosion scale) were conducted. This study showed that high Mn steel with 3% Cr exhibited the highest resistance to FAC presumably due to the formation of a bi-layer scale structure composed of an inner Cr enriched Fe oxide and an outer Mn substituted partially with Fe oxide on the surface. Although the high Mn steels had the lowest corrosion resistance at the initial corrosion stage due to rapid dissolution kinetics of Mn elements on their surface, the kinetics of inner scale (i.e. Cr enriched Fe oxide) formation on Cr-bearing high Mn steel was faster in dynamic flowing condition compared to stagnant condition. On the other hand, the corrosion scales formed on API X70 and 9% Ni steels did not provide sufficient anti-corrosion function during the prolonged exposure to dynamic flowing conditions.