DamienKoteckiPresentation-StainlessSteelSeminar.ppt

Conclusions The foregoing are my very personal views about landmark events in the history of welding stainless steels. The list is certainly not all-inclusive – others can offer their own views. This is the microstructure of wrought duplex stainless steel. The austenite (?) appears white, and the ferrite (?) appears gray. Hot rolling caused the banded structure. It is impossible to pass a crack through this structure without the crack having to enter both austenite and ferrite. Welding with matching filler metal tends to make the weld (and the HAZ) revert back towards their 100% ferrite solidification condition. This weld metal shows coarse ferrite grains with a little austenite around the grain boundaries and inside the ferrite grains. Also inside the ferrite grains is some very fine dark precipitates - chromium nitride. This nitride precipitation occurs when nitrogen hasn’t enough time to find austenite - nitrogen is not soluble in ferrite at low temperatures. Because of the nitrides, this weld would have poor corrosion resistance. The solution to the problem, however, is not to get rid of the nitrogen. If you do that, you get 100% ferrite and the steel becomes more or less unweldable, just like the old CD-4MCu or 329. The solution is actually to raise the nitrogen, so austenite forms faster. Raising the nickel also is helpful. This is the microstructure of a proper duplex stainless steel weld metal, with high nitrogen and high nickel. The ferrite appears white here, and the austenite is the plate-like constituent. Now you see no nitride precipitation. This weld will have corrosion properties and mechanical properties comparable to those of the base metal. 100 Year History and Evolutionof Stainless Steels and Welding – 1913 to 2013 Damian J. Kotecki Damian Kotecki Welding Consultants 105 Barton Lane Chapel Hill, NC 27516 440-368-4104 Mobile: 440-289-8673 damian@ Before the First 100 Years 1797 – Discovery of Chromium by Klaproth and Vauquelin