Quantification of Creep Cavitation in Welded Joint and Evaluation of Material Characteristics of Simulated Heat-Affected Zone in X 20 CrMoV 12 1 Steel

X 20 CrMoV 12 1(DIN 17 175) steel has been used for components subjected to high temperature in power plants and chemical and petroleum industries. Therefore, extensive studies have been made on this steel. However, these studies focused mainly on the base metal, and few studies on the welded joint have been reported. Actually, a large number of failures have occurred at the welded joint, so there is increasing need to investigate the characteristics of X 20 CrMoV 12 1 weldment. In this study, the interrupted and creep rupture tests were carried out and quantification of the creep damage was attempted for the X 20 CrMoV 12 1 welded joint. The interrupted and creep rupture tests were performed at four conditions\M650-60, 600-100, 600-120, and 575-150(|SDC-MPa)\Mon the X 20 CrMoV 12 1 welded joint specimens, respectively. It was revealed from the experimental results that creep damage mechanism of a welded joint was mainly creep cavitation, and that the intensively damaged area by creep cavitations was the transition region from fine-grained heat-affected zone (HAZ) to unaffected base metal, namely intercritical HAZ. For both the interrupted and ruptured specimens, quantification of creep damage was attempted by evaluating cavitated area fraction, average diameter, and the number of cavities with creep life fraction. In addition, on the basis of the heat input during the welding, microstructure, microhardness, and grain size of the actual intercritical HAZ, simulated HAZ was made in order to evaluate its material properties. For the simulated HAZ specimens, tensile, charpy impact, and creep rupture tests were carried out. As a result, yield, tensile strength, and elongation of simulated HAZ were similar to those of base metal, respectively, and impact property of simulated HAZ was slightly above base metal. Also, it was found that creep strength of simulated HAZ was inferior to that of the base metal.