Production of High-Strength and High-Toughness Steel for Offshore Structures

Author(s):  
Yoshihide Nagai ◽  
Hidenori Fukami ◽  
Hajime Inoue ◽  
Takao Nakashima ◽  
Akihiko Kojima ◽  
...  

By the utilization of new fine particles, steels refining the heat affected zone (HAZ) structure have been developed. This has made possible the mass-production of offshore structural steels which have high-strength of 460–500N/mm2 in yield strength (YS) and excellent crack-tip opening displacement (CTOD) properties. These newly developed steels for offshore structures have been mass-production to over 45,000 tons. The new particles are dispersed finely in the developed steels and show a strong pinning effect. The newly developed steels also use the intragranular ferrite (IGF) like titanium oxide bearing steel (TiO steel). In mass-production heats, γ grain size is restricted below 200 μm under conditions of 1400°C for 60 seconds. The improvement of HAZ toughness and the utilization of the thermo-mechanical control process (TMCP) has restrained the increase in carbon equivalent (Ceq,PCM) far as possible. By application of these technologies, it has been possible to mass-produce steels with high-strength, excellent CTOD properties and good weldability. As for steel plates of YS500N/mm2, the production of steel plates up to 70mm in thickness was carried out. The properties of welded joints for the 70mm-thick plates of YS500N/mm2 steel have been evaluated under heat input in 0.7kJ/mm of flux-cored are welding (FCAW) and 3.5kJ/mm of sub-merged arc welding (SAW). They have shown excellent CTOD and Charpy impact properties at welded joints; and have moreover indicated good weldability when PCM has been restricted to 0.22% or lower.

Author(s):  
Katsuyuki Ichimiya ◽  
Kazukuni Hase ◽  
Shigeru Endo ◽  
Masao Yuga ◽  
Kenji Hirata ◽  
...  

In the field of offshore structure, the strength and the toughness required for steel plates used for oil resource development become higher as the installation areas of the structures move into arctic and deep water areas. High strength steel plates for offshore structures, which meet the low temperature specification, have been developed. Excellent properties of the steel plates have been achieved by micro-alloying, the latest controlled rolling and accelerated cooling technology. Excellent properties of weld joints have been also achieved by advanced metallurgical techniques, which are grain-refinement of the coarse grain heat affected zone (CGHAZ), reduction of Martensite-Austenite (M-A) constituent in inter-critically CGHAZ (ICCGHAZ), and improvement of the matrix toughness. These steels are designed for excellent weldability due to low weld cracking parameter (PCM) value up to 550 MPa class in yield stress, and also up to 101.6 mm in thickness with 420 MPa class in yield stress, and satisfying −40°C of crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) temperature specification for offshore structure.


Author(s):  
Katsuyuki Ichimiya ◽  
Kazukuni Hase ◽  
Shigeru Endo ◽  
Yusuke Terazawa ◽  
Takaki Fujiwara ◽  
...  

The strength and the toughness required for steel plates used for offshore structures became higher as the installation areas move into arctic areas. The main property of offshore structure steel is the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) property of weld joint, and CTOD testing is performed at the minimum design temperature of the structure. Thus, the demand for satisfying −40°C of CTOD test temperature specification has increased. For the improvement of HAZ toughness, coarse austenite grain is suppressed by TiN, and low-C, Ceq, Si, P, Nb design is adopted to decrease the formation of M-A constituents. Furthermore, by using Ca inclusion, which works as a pinning particle and a bainite nucleation site, very fine bainite microstructure are formed in HAZ and excellent low temperature toughness are achieved. The YP420 class plate with excellent low temperature toughness has been developed using these technology.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (20) ◽  
pp. 4001 ◽  
Author(s):  
Presno Vélez ◽  
Sánchez ◽  
Menéndez Fernández ◽  
Fernández Muñiz

The increasingly mechanical requirements of offshore structures have established the relevance of fracture mechanics-based quality control in welded joints. For this purpose, crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) at a given distance from the crack tip has been considered one of the most suited parameters for modeling and control of crack growth, and it is broadly used at the industrial level. We have modeled, through multivariate analysis techniques, the relationships among CTOD values and other material properties (such as hardness, chemical composition, toughness, and microstructural morphology) in high-thickness offshore steel welded joints. In order to create this model, hundreds of tests were done on 72 real samples, which were welded with a wide range of real industrial parameters. The obtained results were processed and evaluated with different multivariate techniques, and we established the significance of all the chosen explanatory variables and the good predictive capability of the CTOD tests within the limits of the experimental variation. By establishing the use of this model, significant savings can be achieved in the manufacturing of wind generators, as CTOD tests are more expensive and complex than the proposed alternatives. Additionally, this model allows for some technical conclusions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 71-78 ◽  
pp. 890-897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Qing Wang ◽  
Yun Lin ◽  
Yan Nian Zhang ◽  
Yong Jiu Shi

Three point bending tests were carried out on 14mm-thick Q460C the high-strength structural steel at low temperature, and scanning electronic microscope of the fracture appearance was analyzed. The results showed that the obvious feature of brittle mechanism was shown on the three point bending specimen fracture whose testing took place at -40°C. And the crack tip opening displacement value of Q460C steel, which was less than that of Q235 steel, Q345 steel and Q390 steel at low temperature, tended to decrease with respect to the temperature reduction. Moreover, a Boltzmann function fitting analysis was applied to the experimental data, and the ductile-brittle transition temperature and the changing regularity were obtained.


2017 ◽  
Vol 1143 ◽  
pp. 52-57
Author(s):  
Elena Scutelnicu ◽  
Carmen Catalina Rusu ◽  
Bogdan Georgescu ◽  
Octavian Mircea ◽  
Melat Bormambet

The paper addresses the development of advanced welding technologies with two and three solid wires for joining of HSLA API-5l X70 (High-strength low-alloy) steel plates with thickness of 19.1 mm. The experiments were performed using a multi-wire Submerged Arc Welding (SAW) system that was developed for welding of steels with solid, tubular and cold wires, in different combinations. The main goal of the research was to assess the mechanical performances of the welded joints achieved by multi-wire SAW technology and then to compare them with the single wire variant, as reference system. The welded samples were firstly subjected to NDT control by examinations with liquid penetrant, magnetic particle, ultrasonic and gamma radiation, with the aim of detecting the specimens with flaws and afterwards to reconsider and redesign the corresponding Welding Procedure Specifications (WPS). The defect-free welded samples were subjected to tensile, Charpy V-notch impact and bending testing in order to analyse and report the mechanical behaviour of API-5l X70 steel during multi-wire SAW process. The experimental results were processed and comparatively discussed. The challenge of the investigation was to find the appropriate welding technology which responds simultaneously to the criteria of quality and productivity. Further research on metallurgical behaviour of the base material will be developed, in order to conclude the complete image of the SAW process effects and to understand how the multi-wire technologies affect the mechanical and metallurgical characteristics of the API-5L X70 steel used in pipelines fabrication.


Author(s):  
Ming Liu ◽  
Yong-Yi Wang

Pipelines experiencing displacement-controlled loading need to have adequate strain capacity. Large tensile strain capacity can only be achieved when the failure processes are ductile. In ductile failure analyses, the strain capacity may be determined by two approaches. The first approach uses the conventional fracture mechanics criteria, such as the attainment of the critical crack tip opening displacement, to assess the onset of the crack propagation. The other approach uses damage mechanics models in which the onset and propagation of cracks are controlled by the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of voids in the material. The damage mechanics models can provide some insights of the ductile failure processes as they have more physical mechanisms built in the constitutive model. In this paper, the Gurson-Tvergaard-Needleman (GTN) model is applied to two types of low-constraint tests: curved wide plates and back-bend specimens. The wide plate test is considered more representatives of full-scale pipes than the conventional laboratory-sized specimens, but requires large-capacity machines. The back-bend test is a newly developed low-constraint laboratory-sized test specimen. A relatively simple approach to determine the damage parameters of the GTN model is discussed and the transferability of damage parameters between those two test types is also analyzed.


Author(s):  
Yukito Hagihara ◽  
Masayoshi Kurihara ◽  
Hitoshi Yoshinari ◽  
Takashi Miyata

The standard for the method of assessment for flaws in the welded joints of WES 2805 was first published in 1976 and was revised in 1980 and 1997. A further revision has been carried out by the technical committee of FTS in the Japan Welding Engineering Society and the revision was completed in 2007. The standard of WES 2805 is based on a CTOD (crack tip opening displacement) design curve approach for brittle fracture, and is used for the assessment of the significance of flaws in a stress concentrated region, where large scale yielding takes place. Main topics for the recent developments for flaw assessment methods are described in this paper. These are the interaction criterion of multiple flaws, fatigue crack growth laws, determination of equivalent crack length and strain due to stress concentration, estimation method of the critical CTOD from Charpy energy and proposal of partial safety factors. In order to examine the effectiveness of the standard, extensive 2-D and 3-D FE analyses are performed for various welded joints such as a load-carrying fillet welded joint, a non-load-carrying fillet welded joint and a box welded joint. Some of them are introduced in this paper. Their analytical results indicate that the present CTOD design curve method gives a reasonable evaluation.


2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julián A. Ávila ◽  
Vinicius Lima ◽  
Cassius O. F. T. Ruchert ◽  
Paulo Roberto Mei ◽  
Antonio J. Ramirez

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aurélien Pépin ◽  
Tomasz Tkaczyk ◽  
Noel O'Dowd ◽  
Kamran Nikbin

The demand for subsea transport of highly corrosive constituents has noticeably increased in recent years. This has driven the requirement for high strength pipelines with enhanced corrosion resistance such as chromium stainless steel or bimetal pipes. The latter are carbon steel pipes with a corrosion resistant alloy lining. Reeling is a cost effective installation method for small to medium size subsea pipelines, up to 457.2 mm (18 in.) in diameter. However, plastic straining associated with reeling has an effect on weld defect acceptance criteria. The maximum acceptable defect sizes are typically developed using engineering critical assessment (ECA), based on the reference stress method, which requires that the weld metal is equal to or stronger than the parent metal in terms of the stress–strain curve. However, evenmatch/overmatch cannot always be achieved in the case of subsea stainless or bimetal pipelines. In this work, a parametric finite-element (FE) study was performed to assess the effect of weld metal undermatch on the crack driving force, expressed in terms of the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD). Subsequently, the fracture assessment methodology for reeled pipes was proposed, where the ECA as per BS7910 is first carried out. These acceptable defect sizes are then reduced, using an analytical formula developed in this work, to account for weld undermatch.


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