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School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Joining Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Offshore Oil Engineering Co., Ltd, Tianjin 300450, China
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 6 July 2015
Received in revised form 5 September 2015
Accepted 7 September 2015
Available online 11 September 2015
Keywords:
Water cooling
Acicular ferrite
Inclusions
Mechanical properties
a b s t r a c t
Quenched and tempered E550 steel was joined using ux-cored arc welding. The effect of cooling rate on microstructure, inclusions and mechanical properties of the weld metal was investigated by optical microscope, scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope and mechanical testing. Results show that weld
metal microstructures consist of proeutectoid ferrite, ferrite side plate and acicular ferrite. As the cooling rate increased, the volume fraction of proeutectoid ferrite and ferrite side plate decreased, acicular ferrite increased accompanied with rened grain. Furthermore, inclusions of Ti, Mn oxide with diameter below 2.0 m were found in
the weld metal and rapid cooling rate causes distinct Mn-depleted zone between inclusions and matrix. Excellent
balance of high strength and toughness is obtained as more acicular ferrite in weld metal with rapid cooling rate.
This can attribute to the increased of acicular ferrite with its rened grain and high density dislocation. These
ndings suggest that the rapid cooling rate can improve the impact toughness and tensile strength of weld
metal in local dry underwater welding.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Low carbon quenched and tempered (Q&T) E550 steel is mainly
used for ships and offshore engineering high strength structure. Its excellent strength and toughness enable the structures to become lightweight and have longer service life [13]. However, it is prone to structure damage due to its special service environment such as offshore
platform withstand the erosion of sea water, impact fatigue of tide,
etc. Sometimes, these damages are required for underwater welding repair. So, obtaining excellent balance of high strength and toughness is
urgent need for weld metal in offshore repair using local dry underwater welding. And the quality of weld metal is closely related to the
welding thermal cycle, especially the cooling rate [4]. The microstructure of weld metal of high strength low alloy (HSLA) steel usually contains acicular ferrite, proeutectoid ferrite and ferrite side plate [5].
Generally, the phase transformation sequences of HSLA steel carbon
content below 0.09% may be described as follows [69] (see Fig. 1): as
the weld pool region is heated to temperatures as high as 19001600 C
(Fig. 1a), the dissolved oxygen and deoxidizing elements in liquid steel
react to form complex oxide inclusions. In the temperature range
15301400 C (Fig. 1b), solidication to -ferrite starts and envelops
these oxide inclusions; and this -ferrite transforms to austenite. In
Corresponding author at: School of Material Science and Engineering, Tianjin
University, Tianjin 300072, China.
E-mail address: chfj@tju.edu.cn (F. Cheng).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2015.09.025
0264-1275/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
the temperature range from 1400 to 850 C (Fig. 1c), austenite grain
growth occurs. In the temperature range 850680 C (Fig. 1d and e),
proeutectoid ferrite nucleates at the prior boundaries and grows
by a diffusional mechanism and eventual coverage of these boundaries.
With continued cooling to the temperature range 700550 C (Fig. 1f),
ferrite side plate nucleates at the proeutectoid ferrite or austenite
boundaries and extends into the untransformed austenite grain interiors. Further cooling to around 500 C (Fig. 1g), the acicular ferrite
would nucleate on the inclusions located in the austenite grain interiors
and grow in needle form. On further cooling to room temperature, any
remaining austenite may completely or partially transform to martensite. This mixture of martensiteaustenite phases is referred to as MA
constituent. Generally, the acicular ferrite microstructure with excellent
combination of strength and toughness is becoming a favorable microstructure [10]. Fine acicular ferrite containing high density of dislocations is the expected microstructure in weld metal. High-angle
boundaries among ferrite laths act as obstacles to resistant the propagation of weld cracks, forcing cleavage crack to change the microscopic
path of propagation [6]. Zhang et al. [11] studied weld metal microstructure and properties of HSLA S690QL steels at various cooling rate and
found that excellent Charpy toughness was obtained with acicular ferrite as predominantly microstructure. Sarma et al. [12] analyzed acicular
ferrite from the point view of inclusions characteristics and concluded
that complex inclusions (oxy-suldes and multi-phases inclusions) are
more active nucleation sites for acicular ferrite. Four kinds of mechanisms for acicular ferrite nucleation have been summarized as follows
506
Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of HSAL weld metal phase transformation at continuing cooling condition. Note: AF: acicular ferrite; PF: proeutectoid ferrite; FSP: ferrite side plate.
Table 1
Chemical composition (wt.%) of Q&T E550 steel and deposited metal.
Element
Mn
Si
Ni
Cr
Mo
Cu
Fe
Q&T E550
Deposited metal
0.11
0.034
1.30
1.24
0.18
0.37
0.013
0.011
0.003
0.005
0.04
0.01
0.37
0.45
0.32
0.03
0.31
0.01
0.19
/
Bal.
Bal.
[9,12,13]: (1) inclusions act as inert surfaces leading to a reduction of activation energy; (2) a low mismatch strain between the inclusion and
ferrite; (3) a depletion of alloying elements Mn and Si; and (4) thermal
strains between the inclusion and the matrix.
During local dry underwater welding, a drainage device is used to
make a dry area in the surface of workpiece for welding. This method
ensures the exibility of operation and higher quality of welding joints
compared to wet underwater welding. In local dry underwater welding,
its cooling rate is neither different with wet underwater welding, nor
different with land welding. However, there are few systematic and
in-depth studies on weld metal microstructure and mechanical properties under this condition.
In this research, efforts have been put out to investigate the effect of
cooling rate on microstructure and mechanical properties of E550 steel
weld metal. The results will be available for determining welding procedure and as a reference for E550 steel in local dry underwater welding.
are 1000.0 500.0 26.0 mm. Details of the weld joint are given in
Fig. 3. Considering the rapid cooling will increase weld metal strength,
low strength matching scheme was adopted in the E550 steel welding.
As shown in Fig. 4, a sink full of water have been manufactured and
test plates were located under the water 100 mm. A dry area
(500 300 mm) was surrounded by bafes for welding. During
welding, the water in the sink is cycling in order to simulate the ow
state of seawater. After that, three test plates were welded on land in
order to evaluate the effect of water cooling. A shielding gas of pure
CO2 with the gas ow rate 1520 L/min was used. Thermocouples are
inserted into weld pool to record the thermal cycle, and t8/5 time is measured to represent the cooling rate. Heat input can be calculated using
2. Experimental procedures
The chemical compositions and mechanical properties of the used
E550 steel and deposited metal of E71T-1C-J ux-cored wire are listed
in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. The microstructure of E550 steel
shown in Fig. 2 is tempered sorbite at room temperature. It composes
of equiaxed ferrite and ne granular carbide particles distributed in
the ferrite. The dimensions of the test plates used in this investigation
Table 2
Mechanical properties of Q&T E550 steel and deposited metal.
Q&T E550
Deposited metal
Yield
strength/MPa
Tensile
strength/MPa
Elongation/%
AKV(40
C)/J
605
505
670
560
22
28
220
118
507
Table 3
Welding parameters and heat input.
Sample Welding
current I/A
Welding
voltage U/V
Welding speed
v/(cm/min)
Heat
Cooling
input
rate t8/5/s
E/(kJ/cm)
AC10
AC20
AC30
WC10
WC20
WC30
24.9
24.9
28.9
24.9
24.9
28.9
27.0
13.2
13.2
27.0
13.2
13.2
10.0
20.0
30.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
215
215
275
215
215
275
10.0
15.7
24.6
8.6
10.3
14.5
proeutectoid ferrite (especially massive ferrite) and ferrite side plate increase signicantly. But the volume fraction of acicular ferrite decreases.
For comparison, microstructures at water-cooling condition are ner
than the microstructures at the air-cooling condition. And there is
more acicular ferrite in the weld metal welded at water-cooling condition. According to Table 3, weld metal t8/5 time increases with heat
input increases, which means the weld metal cooling rate increases
with the decrease of heat input. Also, with the same heat input, weld
metal t8/5 time at water-cooling condition is shorter than that at the
air-cooling condition, which means that water-cooling condition can increase the weld metal cooling rate. When t8/5 time is 8.6 s, there is 81.0%
acicular ferrite in weld metal, while there is 42.6% acicular ferrite in
weld metal when t8/5 time is 24.6 s. This indicates that the increase in
volume fraction of acicular ferrite is due to the increase in cooling rate.
The difference between heat inputs and cooling conditions will signicantly inuence the weld metal cooling rate and eventually lead to the
difference among the size, morphology, volume fraction and distribution of microstructure. When the welding processes employ the high
heat input and rapid cooling medium, as the sample AC30, there will
be sufcient time to go through the high temperature transformation
region of austenite. Hence, the diffusion of carbon will become favorable
and the nucleation and growth of proeutectoid ferrite at the austenite
grain boundaries will play an important role in the austeniteferrite
transformation, eventually, facilitates the formation of coarse
proeutectoid ferrite [6,16]. When the welding processes employ the
Fig. 5. Test plate for mechanical properties: (a) location of test specimens; (b) dimensions
of all weld metal tensile test specimens.
508
Fig. 6. Microstructure of the weld metal: (a) AC10; (b) WC10; (c) AC20; (d) WC20; (e) AC30; (f) WC30. Note: AF: acicular ferrite; PF: proeutectoid ferrite; FSP: ferrite side plate.
low heat input and fast cooling medium, cooling rate will be faster than
in high heat input welding. As a result, the transformation start temperature decreases accordingly, which would lead to a higher thermodynamic driving force for acicular ferrite formation. Hence, relatively
more austenite transformed to acicular ferrite for its low transformed
temperature during cooling process [17]. So, it is reasonable to expect
that the volume fraction of acicular ferrite in high cooling rate welds
to be higher than in the low cooling rate welds. This was veried by statistical analysis to the microstructure obtained at different cooling rate
conditions as shown Table 4. And the microstructure would be ner
for there is no sufcient time to grow up, as shown in Fig. 6b.
3.2. Inclusion characteristics
3.2.1. Size distribution and density of inclusions
Many researchers agreed that inclusions in the weld metal may play
a vital role in the nucleation of the acicular ferrite phase in low-alloyTable 4
Phase volume ratios of microstructures in weld metal.
AC10
AC20
AC30
WC10
WC20
WC30
Acicular ferrite
(%)
Proeutectoid ferrite
(%)
Cooling rate
t8/5/s
77.3
61.5
42.6
81.0
70.0
62.5
1.4
5.1
7.3
2.3
8.6
8.0
21.3
33.4
50. 1
16.7
21.4
29.5
10.0
15.7
24.6
8.6
10.3
14.5
steel welds [9,12,16,18,19]. Zhang et al. [11] found that the increase in
cooling rate does change the size and density of non-metallic inclusions.
So it's essential to research the effect of cooling rate on the size distribution and density of inclusions and further to research the effect of these
variations on acicular ferrite nucleation.
Figs. 7 and 8 show the distribution of inclusions and histograms of
size distribution and density of inclusions at different cooling rates.
Most inclusions distributed randomly were spherical in shape with a
typical size below 2.0 m. At different cooling rate, the size distribution
is almost the same and approximately 93% inclusions have diameter
below 1.2 m. Generally, the energy barrier to heterogeneous nucleation of ferrite at inclusions decreases signicantly with an increased inclusion diameter in the range from 0 to 1.0 m, but only slightly
increased with inclusions diameters larger than about 1.0 m [12,20].
In this study, the inclusions size distribution below 1.2 m is the main
nucleation of acicular ferrite, for almost 93% inclusions disperse in this
range.
As shown in Table 5, the density of inclusions shows great difference.
No matter in air or water-cooling condition, the inclusions density
reaches the maximum value at heat input of 10.0 kJ/cm. And the inclusions density in the water-cooling condition is bigger than that in the
air-cooling condition, which indicates that increasing cooling rate will
increase the density of inclusions in the weld metal. And, at the fastest
cooling rate of weld metal t8/5 time 8.6 s, inclusions density reaches
the highest value of 1.48 104/mm2. This is probably due to the maximum oxygen content in the rapid cooling rate as shown in Table 5.
For the increased cooling rate makes the oxygen supersaturate in the
weld metal [21]. From Table 5, the oxygen content in WC10 reaches
509
Fig. 7. Inclusions distribution in weld metal: (a) AC10; (b) WC10; (c) AC20; (d) WC20; (e) AC30; (f) WC30.
time of the droplet and oxygen increase; (3) the increase of welding
current makes alloy elements burning loss and evaporation more intense, and the mass fraction of oxygen increases subsequently.
For acicular ferrite nucleation, one important factor is the number
and density of inclusions, which serve as ferrite nucleation sites in
weld metal. Obtaining ne microstructure with a high volume fraction
of acicular ferrite is related to the excessive number of efciency inclusions [12]. Fine, sub-micron inclusions pin the austenite grain boundaries and limit grain growth, while larger inclusions, ranging between
0.4 m and above in size, provide intragranular nucleation sites for acicular ferrite [21]. So, adequate inclusions are necessary to maximize the
Fig. 8. Histograms of size distribution and density of inclusions: (a) air-cooling condition; (b) water-cooling condition.
510
Table 5
Oxygen content (wt.%) and inclusions density (number/mm2) in weld metal.
Samples
AC10
AC20
AC30
WC10
WC20
WC30
Oxygen content
Inclusions density
0.074
1.11 104
0.043
0.71 104
0.059
0.78 104
0.092
1.48 104
0.063
0.83 104
0.066
0.89 104
Fig. 9. TEM micrograph and EDS spectrums of inclusions: (a) and (b) AC30; (c) and (d) WC10.
Fig. 10. EDS elemental mapping of acicular ferrite nucleation inclusion of sample WC10.
511
Fig. 11. Line EDS analysis of Mn variation across the inclusion: (a) and (c) AC30; (b) and (d) WC 10.
input of 30.0 kJ/cm and air cooling). This is due to the Mn diffusion and
homogenization increased at a lower cooling rate [12]. Mn is an
austenite-stabilized element. Therefore, a Mn-depletion zone in weld
metal near precipitated MnO and MnS inclusions can lead to a reduction
of austenite zone and thus promote the nucleation of acicular ferrite in a
Mn-depletion zone during austenite to acicular ferrite transformation
[5].
3.3. Mechanical properties
3.3.1. Hardness
Hardness measurements were performed by means of Vickers
(HV10) method on padding weld cross-sections. The hardness of Q&T
E550 steel is about 260 9 HV10. Hardness results of weld metal are
shown in Table 6. In weld metal, the hardness values are in the range
of 187221 HV10. For comparison, in the case of the same heat input,
the weld metal hardness does not exhibit much difference. This can attribute to that the microstructure in weld metal is all ferrite and the differences in its morphology and ratio of proeutectoid ferrite, ferrite side
plate and acicular ferrite do not lead to much hardness variation.
3.3.2. All weld metal tensile strength
Table 7 lists the results of ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield
strength (YS) and elongation of all weld metal tensile test. The results
show that under water-cooling condition, UTS and YS both increased
compared with the air-cooling condition, while elongation increased
at the heat input of 10.0 kJ/cm, decreased at the heat input of 20.0
30.0 kJ/cm. The YS and UTS of the sample WC10 welded with heat
input of 10.0 kJ/cm and water-cooling condition is the highest, while
Table 6
Hardness results of weld metal (HV10).
Samples
AC10
AC20
AC30
WC10
WC20
WC30
Hardness
198 12
188 9
187 10
221 23
203 9
200 5
the YS and UTS of the sample AC20 is the lowest. The fracture surfaces
were observed in order to relate the tensile properties to operative fracture mechanisms. The tensile fracture surface is often considered to consist of three zones, that is the brous zone, radial zone and shear lip zone
[24]. The brous zone is associated with ductile fracture while the radial
zone brittle fracture. Fig. 12 shows the typical SEM fracture morphology
at the brous zone. As can be seen in this gure, the fracture surfaces exhibited ductile fracture as a result of the equiaxed dimples. And the dimples with average size of 3 m in weld WC10 is even bigger and deeper
than that in other weld metal and its distribution is uniform, which indicates the high YS in the weld metal. This behavior is related to the increase of ne acicular ferrite in the weld metal. Quantitative analysis of
grain size of acicular ferrite, proeutectoid ferrite and ferrite side plate in
each sample was conducted according to GB/T6394 [25]. The result is
shown in Table 7. It can be seen that in the water-cooling condition,
the total average grain size decreased and YS increased compared
with that in the air-cooling condition, which indicates that the YS increased with the grain size decreased.
It is well known that the yield strength and tensile strength are increased with decreasing the grain size. Grain renement of acicular ferrite increases the strength of material due to an increase in the amount,
density and uniform distribution of dislocation [16]. So, the effective
grain size and dislocation density of acicular ferrite play a vital role in
improving the YS and UTS [8]. As the cooling rate increased, the effective
grain is rened and the dislocation density goes up, making the YS and
UTS increasing signicantly.
3.3.3. Charpy impact toughness
The Charpy impact test results of weld metal at 20 C are shown in
Fig. 13. It is observed that the impact absorbed energy decreased with
the heat input increased. When welding at water-cooling condition,
the impact toughness all increased compared with welding at aircooling condition. The maximum impact energy value is 134 J found
in the sample WC10. It is clear that the Charpy impact toughness is increased with the cooling rate increased. It is due to the increased percentage of acicular ferrite in the weld metal [26]. Acicular ferrite has
512
Table 7
Results of all weld metal tensile test and quantitative analysis of grain size.
Samples
Yield
strength/MPa
Ultimate tensile
strength/MPa
Elongation/%
AF average grain
size/m
PF average grain
size/m
AC10
AC20
AC30
WC10
WC20
WC30
524.2
503.9
509.0
563.1
529.5
551.9
589.7
567.0
572.6
626.7
596.4
620.1
25.24
28.20
29.20
25.80
24.92
23.32
2.04
2.26
2.42
2.01
2.20
2.24
10.82
11.79
14.04
9.00
10.98
12.04
4.00
3.44
5.44
3.36
3.40
3.13
3.94
5.50
8.46
3.21
4.18
5.20
Note: AF: acicular ferrite; PF: proeutectoid ferrite; FSP: ferrite side plate.
good Charpy impact toughness, which is mainly due to its small effective packet size and ne interlocking microstructure with high
angle grain boundaries between ferrite plates [16]. Acicular ferrite
has much higher dislocation densities (10 6 10 8 mm 2 ) than
proeutectoid ferrite or ferrite side plate [12]. The acicular ferrite
laths nucleate intragranularly at the surface of inclusions. Hence,
they have a disordered crystallographic orientation, resulting in a
postpone path for cleavage crack propagation in weld metal [12,
27]. The proeutectoid ferrite and ferrite side plate provide preferential crack-propagation paths in grains. This is due to the proeutectoid
ferrite distributed on the boundary of prior austenite and parallel
laths of ferrite side plate growing into grains provide preferential
crack propagation routes [6]. Therefore, it can be expected that the impact toughness increases with an increasing amount of acicular ferrite
in weld metal and decreases with an increasing amount of proeutectoid
ferrite and ferrite side plate structures.
4. Conclusions
On the basis of all the obtained results, the following conclusions can
be drawn:
1) Under the heat input of 10.030.0 kJ/cm, air or water-cooling conditions, the microstructure of weld metal consisted of the proeutectoid
ferrite, ferrite side plate and acicular ferrite. As the cooling rate increased, the content of acicular ferrite increased with the
proeutectoid ferrite and ferrite side plate decreased, this is because
that there is higher thermodynamic driving force and more suitable
inclusions for acicular ferrite nucleation in rapid cooling rate. And
the microstructures of weld metal become ner.
2) Inclusions sizes observed in weld metal mainly distribute in range of
below 2.0 m. And the density of inclusions reaches the maximum
Fig. 12. SEM fracture morphology at the brous zone: (a) AC10; (b) WC10; (c) AC20; (d) WC20; (e) AC30; (f) WC30.
513