The creep and the creep-fatigue properties of full repair welds (FRW) and partial repair welds (PRW) were evaluated in this study. Since the PRW contained the service-aged girth weld which was the weak link of the cross weld, the PRW was a shorter creep strength than the FRW. Moreover, the PRW showed a remarkably shorter creep-fatigue life compared to that of the FRW. In order to consider the poor creep-fatigue properties of PRW, finite element (FEM) analysis was conducted with experimentally measured material constants using service-aged base metal, aged weld metal, simulated coarse-grained HAZ, simulated fine-grained HAZ and repair weld metal. The analysis revealed that the strain concentrated on the aged and softened base metal or girth weld metal of the repair-welded cross weld specimen and not on the virgin cross weld specimen. The failure locations in creep-fatigue tests were close to the strain concentrated zone. Thus, the strain concentration is considered to work as a significant role and dominate the creep-fatigue properties of repair welds. In addition, the ductility of the weld metal was much less than that of the base metal. Consequently, the interaction of the strain concentration and the lack of ductility induced the lesser creep-fatigue properties of the PRW.

Topics:
Creep, Fatigue, Maintenance, Steel, Welded joints, Metals, Base metals, Ductility, Failure, Finite element analysis, Finite element methods, Finite element model
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