Characterizing PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS of different LTT alloys and their effect on RESIDUAL STRESSES and COLD CRACKING

Novel martensitic filler materials with specially adjusted martensite start temperatures (M s ) can counteract the cooling specific shrinkage due to expansion effects of the weld metal associated with phase transformations. That can be exploited to create compressive residual stresses in the weld and adjacent areas, i.e. beneficial for increasing fatigue strength. The M s -temperature is shifted via the chemical composition, mainly by the alloying elements nickel and chromium, resulting as well in different retained austenite contents. Investigations were made using different Low Transformation Temperature (LTT) alloys with varying nickel content. The resulting phase transformation temperatures were — for the first time — detected using high energy synchrotron diffraction and Single Sensor Differential Thermal Analysis (SS-DTA). Compared to angle dispersive diffraction, energy dispersive diffraction offers the possibility to measure residual stresses of the martensite and austenite phase parallel fast in one experiment up to depths of 100 μm. The residual stresses show significant distributions dependent on the M s -temperature. The effect on the cold cracking behaviour of these alloys was investigated using the Tekken test. Results show that cold cracking can be avoided when appropriate contents of retained austenite are existent.