Proceedings of the ASME 2018

Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference

PVP2018
July 15-20, 2018, Prague, Czech Republic

PVP2018-84693

INFLUENCE OF WELD RESIDUAL STRESSES ON DUCTILE CRACK BEHAVIOR IN

AISI TYPE 316LN STAINLESS STEEL WELD JOINT

Sai Deepak Namburu Lakshmana Rao Chebolu

Research Scholar, IIT Madras Professor, IIT Madras
Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

A. Krishnan Subramanian Raghu Prakash Sasikala Gomathy

Scientific Officer “E”, IGCAR Professor, IIT Madras HOD, MD&TD, IGCAR
Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, India

ABSTRACT This paper studies the influence of welding residual stresses on

Welding residual stress is one of the main concerns in the the crack present in the SS 316LN weld joint. Two-dimensional
process of fabrication and operation because of failures in plain strain models have been modelled to simulate the crack
welded steel joints due to its potential effect on structural present in CT specimen. Welding residual stresses were mapped
integrity. This work focuses on the effect of welding residual on to FE-model using residual mapping technique [3]. The
stress on the ductile crack growth behavior in AISI 316LN GTN model is used to estimate the crack behavior due to
welded CT specimens. Two-dimensional plane strain model has loading and develop load bearing behavior. The effect of
been used to simulate the CT specimen. X-ray diffraction residual stresses on ductile crack growth behavior for cases with
technique is used to obtain residual stress value at the SS different crack sizes and porosity values have been studied.
316LN weld joint. The GTN model has been employed to
estimate the ductile crack growth behavior in the CT-specimen. NOMENCLATURE
Results show that residual stresses influence the ductile crack
growth behavior. The effect of residual stress has also been LLD Load line displacement
investigated for cases with different initial void volume fraction, COD Crack opening displacement
crack lengths. q1, q2, q3 Gurson’s parameters
f void volume fraction
INTRODUCTION f0 Initial void volume fraction
The influence of weld residual stresses on the behavior of fN f at void nucleation
the weld joint characterizes the failure of weld structures and fc f at critical void volume fraction
welded components. The ductile crack growth behavior seen in fF f at final void volume fraction
many of the steel structure play a vital role in fracture analysis. fu* Ultimate void volume fraction
The ductile fracture process is effected by the presence of high εN Mean nucleating strain
stress triaxiality and plastic strains [1] and influences the near SN Standard deviation
tip stress/strain field. This causes the ductile material to undergo [σ]input Pre-stress input value
transition and fail in cleavage mode. The presence of residual [σ]measured Measured pre-stress value
stresses can influence the stress fields due to loading at the [σ]output Resultant stress after equilibrium step
crack tip and cause additional constraint [2]. Hence it is σeq Equivalent von Mises stress value
interesting to investigate the influence of residual stresses on σm Mean stress value
crack growth behavior.  Flow stress in the material

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 METHODOLOGY
Material Properties and Geometry of the Weld Joint
The material studied is the austenite stainless steel
grade 316LN (316LN SS), used for the primary and secondary
sodium systems of Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).
Figure 1. (a) True stress and strain curves: base metal and weld
metal, (b) CT specimen geometry and initial crack location.
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316LN SS ensures freedom from sensitization during welding
and inter-granular corrosion of the components and provides
required material properties like high thermal conductivity, low
solidification temperature, elastic and plastic properties. Shield
metal arc welding is performed to fabricate 316LN SS weld
joints. In this process, SS 316L electrode sticks are used.
Tensile specimens used for material properties testing are
extracted perpendicular to the weld seam. In this study,
weldment material properties are assumed to be isotropic. The
true stress vs. strain curves of base metal (BM) and weld metal
(WM) of 316LN SS are shown in the Fig. 1(a). The compact
tension (CT) specimen is used to study the fracture behaviour of
316LN SS material. The main dimensions of the CT specimen
are shown in the Fig. 1(b), where the width W is 50mm,
thickness B is 14mm, weld width is 14mm. Size of the heat
affected zone (HAZ) is found to be less than 3μm. Since the
mechanical properties of HAZ and weld are assumed to be
similar [4] and HAZ is considered to be a part of the weld zone.
GTN Damage Model and Parameters Estimations
Ductile fracture in metals is a result of void nucleation,
growth and coalescence of the existing and newly born
microvoids due to loading. Unlike traditional plasticity models,
Gurson developed a microscopic yield criterion [5] for
homogenous, rigid plastic material behaviour which considers
void volume fraction f as an internal variable and captures the
degradation of the load-bearing capacity of the material in the
presence of porosity. Modified Gurson model (also called GTN
model) was developed by Tvergaard and Needleman [6] to
model the interaction between voids and coalescence of voids
during the final stage of material failure. The modified GTN
model consists of additional parameters (q1, q2, q3) and
modified damage variable f*. The yield function of the GTN
model is shown below:
 eq2 3 
 ( , f ,  )   2q1 f *.cosh( q2 m )  1  (q1 f * ) 2
 2 
0 (1)
with f  f for f  f c
*
fu*  f c
 fc   f  fc  for f  f c (2)
f f  fc
where σeq is the von Mises equivalent stress, σm is the
hydrostatic stress and  is the flow strength of the matrix
material which is a function of the accumulated plastic strain.
The constitutive model parameters q1, q2, and q3=q12 are
introduced to consider the interaction between adjacent voids.
These phenomenological based parameters depend on the
elastic-plastic properties of the material like strain hardening
 exponent and the yield stress. Void volume fraction (f) is the
ratio of the volume of voids to the volume of the matrix
material. f0 is the initial void volume fraction of the material,
and void nucleation happens when f reaches fN. Both f0 and fN
parameters are determined based on the metallographic and
fracture toughness analysis. Other void nucleation parameters
are a mean strain at nucleation εn and corresponding standard
deviation SN. GTN model considers f* over f to take into
account the gradual loss of stress carrying capacity of the
material due to void coalescence. When f reaches critical void
volume fraction fc, void coalescence happens in the materials,
and material point loses its load bearing capacity fully, and
when f reaches final volume fraction fF or when f* = fu* fracture
occurs, where fu* = 1/q1. Tvergaard and Needleman [6] can be
referred to explore the equations of the GTN model further. The
GTN model is available in Abaqus explicit FEA and is widely
used to simulate and predict the ductile fracture process [7,8].
Among nine parameters of the GTN model parameters, for
medium strength steel, GTN constitutive model parameters
were used by Faleskog et al. [9] to be q1 = 1.5, q2 = 1 and q3 =
2.25 and void nucleation parameters εn = 0.3 and SN =0.1 which
were proposed by Kami et al. [10] have been used in most
investigations and these values were used in this study. The
parameters f0, fN, fc and fF are usually evaluated by fitting
numerical simulations and experimental results. The GTN
model parameters for 316LN SS (base metal) has been obtained
from literature [7]. For welded 316LN SS, a numerous set of f0,
fN, and fF are tried in the simulation process to fit the
experimental results of tensile specimen and CT specimen.
Tensile specimen and CT specimen were modelled using
experiment specimen dimensions to perform FEA and models
were studied on mesh convergence. To start with, initial set of
GTN damage parameters were set to base metal 316LN SS. The
influence of each parameter on the material behavior of the
specimen was studied. The influence of f0 was high on the
response of the material to GTN damage model. In the process
of finding GTN parameters for weld metal, it is found that these
parameters are not independent of each other. The values of fF,
fc, and fN were not matching the experimental results when
compared independently. Hence various sets of fc and fN along
with fF were studied to match the GTN parameters for weld
metal with experimental tensile and CT specimens. The finally
determined GTN damage model parameters for base metal and
weld metal are listed in the Table 1 and these parameters were
used in the numerical simulation of CT specimens in section 3.
Table 1: GTN parameters of 316LN SS base metal and weld metal
Materials q1 q2 f0 n SN fN fc
Base metal 1.5 1 1x10-6 0.3 0.1 0.0055 0.05
Weld metal 1.5 1 0.001 0.3 0.1 0.008 0.05
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Residual Mapping Technique
The measured residual stress value for weld 316LN SS was
taken from X-ray diffraction report performed on dissimilar
metal weld joint of 316LN - Inconel 182 - P91. Some important
test parameters used for residual stress measurement by the
XRD technique for 316LN SS are X-ray radiation used
Chromium Kβ, operating voltage is 30 kV, Current is 7mA,
Wavelength is 2.0848. The value of residual stress is 153MPa
measured at 7mm away from the interface of 316LN SS and
Inconel 182.
The residual stress was introduced into the FE-model of the CT-
specimen at weld zone as pre-stress, but without a crack. Since
the introduction of pre-stress causes the FE-model to be in the
non-equilibrium state, a self-equilibrated step was performed to
distribute and relax the defined pre-stresses to the adjacent
elements of the FE-model before applying loads or
displacements. This step results in a difference between the
initial pre-stress and equilibrium stresses developed. To
minimize the difference, an iterative process is chosen to
modify the input values of the pre-stress to emulate a desired
residual stress. The following equation defines the iterative
process:
(3)
where [σ]input is pre-stress input into the FE-model, [σ]measured is
the measured residual stress from experiments. [σ]output is the
resultant stress obtained after equilibrium step. The superscript
i, in the Equation (2) represents the ith step in the iterative
process and α is a constant and taken as 1. This iteration process
starts with i=0 and [σ]input = [σ]measured. [σ]input for i=1 is
calculated from the Equation (2) and using the value of [σ]output
obtained from previous analysis. The iterative process runs till
the values of [σ]output = [σ]measured are approximately equal.
The mapped stresses converge to pre-residual stress values after
3 iterative steps. The output stresses in the weld direction agree
to within 4.5%. The maximum difference in mapped and
measured pre-stress at the weld region was ~10 MPa. The
converged residual stress distribution is mapped to the cracked
FE-model of 316LN SS. Introducing the crack, makes the
stresses to redistribute again and eliminates the higher stresses
produced near the notch of CT-specimen. Cracked FE-model
with mapped residual stresses help us to understand the
influence of residual stresses on the crack initiation and
propagation behavior. Since the values of distributed residual
fF stresses in the vicinity of the crack is less than yield stress of the
0.3 weld metal, no plastic strain is observed at the crack front
0.2
before the external load is applied.
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 Finite Element Model of 316LN SS Weld Joint
Figure 2. shows the finite element model used in the
analyses. (a) shows the meshes of the FE model and the loading,
boundary conditions used for the analyses are shown in fig.
2(b).
Figure 2. (a) Mesh for a CT specimen, (b) loading and
boundary conditions on the CT specimen
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Abaqus FEA was used to perform finite element calculations,
and 2D plane strain elements were used along with 4-noded
isoparametric formulation (CPE4R) and reduced integration.
Reference point RP-1 is constraint from x-displacement and
RP-2 is constraint from x-displacement and y- displacement.
Displacement control loading was performed on each specimen
with load line displacement (LLD) movement equal to 12mm
applied at RP-1 as shown in fig. 2(b). The actual crack growth
path along the specimen thickness direction could not be
obtained by the 2D analysis. It is found that the rectangular
mesh with aspect ratio equal to 2 near the crack growth area can
simulate stable crack growth with reduced oscillations [11].
Hence, the mesh size of aspect ratio 2 is maintained near the
crack growth region. All FE models have same dimensions and
similar loading and boundary conditions were used. It is to be
noted that the we have used straight weld interfaces in the finite
element models.
Numerical simulation results
316LN SS weld joint with central crack in weld metal:
The GTN parameters determined in the previous section are
used to study the ductile crack growth initiation and
propagation of welded 316LN SS using CT specimen of a/W =
0.5. The weld width is 14mm with notch and pre-crack placed
at the centre of the weld. Crack opening displacement is
distance measured between two nodes with increase in applied
displacement at the load pin as shown in Fig. 3(a). The fig. 3(a)
also shows the elements reached fF value near the weld region
 Figure 3. (a) shows the crack propagation in the CT specimen
when f reaches fF, (b) comparison of experimental and
numerical curves force vs crack opening displacement (COD)
curves
and these elements (also called stress free elements) explains
the crack propagation phenomenon with applied displacement
at the welded region using GTN damage model. This
phenomenon also gives us an easy way to calculate change in
crack length by measuring the distance from initial crack tip to
the current element which reaches fF. In this way, the obtained
load vs COD is plotted and shown in Fig. 3(b). This
numerically obtained load vs COD is compared with
experimental results provided by IGCAR, Kalpakkam. This
comparison shows the elastic regions of the finite element curve
and experimental curve are identical and plastic region of
curves are not quite identical. More numerical studies and in-
situ tests are required at several regions of the weld joints to
predict the crack growth resistance close to experiments. Such
general agreement between the simulated and experimental
results implies that the current set of GTN parameters for weld
metal are acceptable and can be used for further prediction.
Hence the evaluated GTN parameters is used for the further
simulations on 316LN SS weld joints.
Ductile Crack Growth Behavior of Weld Joint with
Different Crack Lengths
In the CT specimen analysis, different initial crack lengths have
great influence on the crack initiation, growth and load bearing
capacity. To investigate the influence of residual stress on crack
behavior and crack size, specimens with different initial crack
lengths (a/W = 0.5 and 0.6) were used to simulate load vs load
line displacement (LLD) curve.
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Figure 4. Comparison between without residual stress and with
residual stresses for crack sizes a/W = 0.5 and a/W = 0.6.
The effect of residual stresses on load bearing capacity of the
weld structure is shown in fig. 4. It is observed from that the
elastic behavior of the structure is not effected by the presence
of residual stresses. The weld structure plasticity behavior is
observed to be effected by the presence of the residual stresses.
The effect of residual stresses is profoundly seen on the weld
structure having a/W=0.5. For a/W=0.6, the presence of
residual stresses distribution has a little effect on the behavior
of weld structure. The effect of change in crack size on the load
bearing capacity of the weld structure is understood well. The
load bearing capacity of the structure decreases with the
increase in crack size. The reasons for such behavior is due to
the presence of high stress triaxiality and high equivalent plastic
strains present ahead of the crack tip for high crack lengths.
This increases the compliances of the structure to reduce the
load bearing capacity of the structure.
From fig. 4, the effect of crack size on the load bearing capacity
shows such similar behavior. The presence of residual stresses
on the weld structure is found to be seen only in plastic region.
The distributed residual stresses mapped onto the cracked FE-
model is very low compared to the yield stress of the weld
metal. Hence, the applied residual stresses could not deform the
weld metal before applying external load or displacements. This
causes no change in the elastic behavior of the weld structure.
The influences of residual stresses on the plastic region is
observed in the early portion of the plastic curve. The effect of
residual stresses is slowly diminishing in the later part of the
curve.
 Ductile Crack Growth Behavior of Weld Joint with
Different Initial Porosities
Ductile crack growth behavior for different values of initial
porosities in the weld structure is studied. The different values
of initial porosities used for this study are f0 = 0.001, 0.008, and
0.05. The values of f0 used for this study are chosen from the
values calibrated for weld metal. The evolution of initial void
fraction (f0=0.001) to void nucleation (fN=0.008) and critical
void volume fraction (fc=0.05) has also been studied as a part of
this study.
From fig. 5, it is clearly seen how initial porosity is effecting the
load bearing capacity of the weld structure. The behavior of the
weld structure for f0=0.008 clearly shows when the voids starts
nucleating in this weld structure. Void nucleation triggers the
nucleation of existing voids and newly born voids because of
loading. The separation of the two curves (f0=0.001 and 0.008)
clearly shows this void nucleation phenomenon. The behavior
of the weld structure when initial porosity is 0.05 heightens the
effect of the porosity.
Figure 5. Comparison between without residual stress and with
residual stresses for different porosities f0 = 0.001, 0.008 &
0.05.
The importance of critical void volume fraction fc in the
material behavior is illustrated by selecting the initial porosity
as 0.05. From this behavior, the material selection for structural
operations should have initial porosity very far from critical
void volume fraction.
The influence of residual stresses at different porosity in the
weld joint is shown in fig. 5. The influence of residual stresses
on the weld metal with f0=0.05 is very little. This shows that the
influence of residual stresses on the material diminishes with
the increases in initial porosity. For f0= 0.001 and 0.008, the
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presence of residual stresses has no effect on the elastic region.
The weld metal plasticity behavior is effected by the presence
of residual stress distribution.
Conclusions
This paper studied the effect of residual stresses on the load
bearing capacity, crack size and different porosity is studied.
The influence of crack size (a/W =0.5 and 0.6) and different
porosity (f0= 0.001, 0.008, and 0.05) in the weld region on load
bearing capacity is also studied as a part of this paper. Two-
dimensional plain strain FE-model has been utilized to simulate
the CT specimen behavior. The residual stresses are mapped
into the cracked FE-model successfully with good agreement.
The ductile crack propagation was performed using GTN
model. The following conclusions have been drawn from this
work:
 The effect of residual stresses on the behavior of the
weld joint depends on the values of the residual
stresses.
 Low residual stresses can affect the plastic region of
the load bearing capacity and have no effect on the
elastic region.
 Influence of residual stresses on the load bearing
capacity is weaker for deep cracks and the material
with high initial porosity.
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