Search Results for rapid quenching

The tubes of a stationary industrial boiler, 64 mm in diam and made of 1.25Cr-0.5Mo steel (ASME SA-213, grade T-11) failed by two different types of rupture. Noticeable swelling of the tubes in the area of rupture was revealed by visual examination. The tubes with slight longitudinal splits were interpreted to have failed by stress rupture resulting from prolonged overheating at 540 to 650 deg C as the microstructure exhibited extensive spheroidization and coalescence of carbides. The larger ruptures were tensile failures that resulted from rapid overheating to 815 to 870 deg C as a completely martensitic structure was revealed at the edges of the ruptures in these tubes because of rapid quenching by escaping fluid. The prolonged-overheating failures were concluded to have been the primary ruptures and that local loss of circulation had caused rapid overheating in adjacent tubes. Poor boiler circulation and high furnace temperatures were believed to have caused the prolonged overheating.

To permit bolting of a 90 lb/yd. flat-bottomed rail to a steel structure, rectangular slots 2 in. wide x 1 in. deep were flame-cut in the base of the rail at 2 ft intervals to suit existing bolt holes. During subsequent handling, one of the rails (which were about 25 ft long) was dropped from a height of approximately 6 ft on to a concrete floor and it fractured into 11 pieces, each break occurring at a slot. The sample piece submitted for examination showed a wholly brittle fracture at each end, the fractures having originated at the sharp corners of the slots. During flame-cutting, a narrow band of material on each side of the cut was raised above the hardening temperature. When the torch had passed the rate of abstraction of heat from this zone by conduction into the cold mass of the rail was sufficiently rapid to amount to a quench and thus cause local hardening. The steel in the regions of the slots possessed little capacity for deformation, and fracturing of the martensitic layer, under cooling or impact stresses, would be likely to occur. The slots should have been cut mechanically.

Several fractures occurred in flange studs used for remote handling of radioactive equipment. The studs, of quenched-and-tempered type 414 stainless steel, fractured in the HAZs produced in the studs during the circumferential welding that joined the studs to the flanges. The weld deposits were of type 347 stainless steel, and the flanges were type 304 stainless steel. Metallographic examination of the failed studs revealed that the HAZs contained regions of martensite and that intergranular cracks, which initiated at the stud surfaces during welding, propagated to complete separation under subsequent loading. The studs fractured under service loads as a result of intergranular crack propagation in the HAZ. Rapid heating and cooling during attachment welding produced a martensitic structure in the HAZ of the stud, which cracked circumferentially from the combination of thermal-gradient and phase-change stresses. Joining the studs to the flanges by welding should be discontinued. They should be attached by screw threads, using a key and keyway to prevent turning in service.

A root cause failure analysis was performed on a vaporizer coil removed from a horizontal forced circulation vaporizer. The carbon steel coil was wound in a right-hand helix with a coil centerline diameter of about 2 m. The vaporizer was gas fired and used Dowtherm A as the heat transfer fluid. Design conditions are based on annular fluid flow to cool the coil wall. NDE, metallographic and fractographic examinations were performed. Numerous, circumferentially oriented, OD initiating cracks were found near the crown for two coils near the non-fired end of the vaporizer. The cracking was confined to the inner diameter of the vaporizer coil at positions from 4:00 to 7:00. The cracking was characterized as transgranular and the fracture surface had beach marks. The failure mechanism was thermal fatigue. The heat transfer calculation predicted that dryout of the coil would occur for coils at the non-fired end of the vaporizer during low flow transients. Dryout results in rapid increase in the tube wall temperature. Thermal cycling of the coil is completed by liquid quenching resulting from resumption of normal flow rates and the return to annular flow. The probable root cause of failure was low flow transient operation.

A hypoid pinion made from 4820 Ni-Mo alloy steel was the driving member of a power unit operating a rapid transit car. The pinion had been removed from service at the end of the initial test period because it showed undue wear. The mode of failure was severe abrasive wear. The cause of failure was insufficient surface hardness, resulting from improper heat treatment. A service recall for the remaining pinions was immediately initiated.

Fragments of screen bars which as structural elements of a condenser had come into contact with cooling water from the mouth of a river were received. The screen bars were made of stainless austenitic Cr-Ni-Mo steel X 5 Cr-Ni-Mo18 10 (Material No. 1.4401). The bars were fractured repeatedly. The ruptures did not occur exclusively or even preferentially at the loops, but just as frequently at locations between them. The mistake made in this case was annealing the steel at a temperature in the critical region. This was probably done to relieve stresses that originated during cold-forming and led to damage by stress corrosion. This would have been the correct method for a ferritic steel, but not austenitic steel, which requires the special heat treatment indicated. When an anneal in the critical region is unavoidable and the indicated additional treatment is impossible or difficult, a type of steel has to be chosen which is resistant to intergranular corrosion.

In this article, we report the outcome of an investigation made to uncover the premature fracture of crusher jaws produced in a local foundry. A crusher jaw that had failed while in service was studied through metallographic techniques to determine the cause of the failure. Our investigation revealed that the reason for the fracture was the presence of large carbides at the grain boundaries and in the grain matrix. This led to the formation of microcracks that propagated along the grain boundaries under in-service working forces. It is also believed that the precipitation of carbides at the grain boundaries may have occurred because of improper heat treatment, but not because of a deficiency in composition.

A precipitation-hardened stainless steel poppet valve assembly used to shut off the flow of hydrazine fuel to an auxiliary power unit was found to leak. SEM and optical micrographs revealed that the final heat treatment designed for the AM-350 bellows material rendered the AM-355 poppet susceptible to intergranular corrosive attack (IGA) from a decontaminant containing hydroxy-acetic acid. This attack provided pathways for which fluid could leak across the sealing surface in the closed condition. It was concluded that the current design is flight worthy if the poppet valve assembly passes a preflight helium pressure test. However a future design should use the same material for the poppet and bellows so that the final heat treatment will produce an assembly not susceptible to IGA.

This article introduces some of the general sources of heat treating problems with particular emphasis on problems caused by the actual heat treating process and the significant thermal and transformation stresses within a heat treated part. It addresses the design and material factors that cause a part to fail during heat treatment. The article discusses the problems associated with heating and furnaces, quenching media, quenching stresses, hardenability, tempering, carburizing, carbonitriding, and nitriding as well as potential stainless steel problems and problems associated with nonferrous heat treatments. The processes involved in cold working of certain ferrous and nonferrous alloys are also covered.

Overload failures refer to the ductile or brittle fracture of a material when stresses exceed the load-bearing capacity of a material. This article reviews some mechanistic aspects of ductile and brittle crack propagation, including a discussion on mixed-mode cracking, which may also occur when an overload failure is caused by a combination of ductile and brittle cracking mechanisms. It describes the general aspects of fracture modes and mechanisms. The article discusses some of the material, mechanical, and environmental factors that may be involved in determining the root cause of an overload failure. It also presents examples of thermally and environmentally induced embrittlement effects that can alter the overload fracture behavior of metals.

The center portions of two adjacent low-carbon steel boiler tubes (made to ASME SA-192 specifications) ruptured during a start-up period after seven months in service. It was indicated by reports that there had been sufficient water in the boiler two hours before start-up. The microstructure near the rupture edge was revealed by metallographic examination to consist of ferrite and acicular martensite or bainite. The microstructure and the observed lack of cold work indicated a temperature above the transformation temperature of 727 deg C had been reached. Swelling of the tubes was disclosed by the wall thickness and OD of the tubing. The tubes were concluded to have failed due to rapid overheating.

This article provides an overview of the effects of various material- and process-related parameters on residual stress, distortion control, cracking, and microstructure/property relationships as they relate to various types of failure. It discusses phase transformations that occur during heat treating and describes the metallurgical sources of stress and distortion during heating and cooling. The article summarizes the effect of materials and the quench-process design on distortion and cracking and details the effect of cooling characteristics on residual stress and distortion. It also provides information on the methods of minimizing distortion and tempering. The article concludes with a discussion on the effect of heat treatment processes on microstructure/property-related failures.

An intermediate shaft (3 in. diam), part of a camshaft drive on a large diesel engine, broke after two weeks of service. Failure occurred at the end of the taper portion adjacent to the screwed thread. The irregular saw-tooth form of fracture was characteristic of failure from torsional fatigue. A second shaft carried as spare gear was fitted and failure took place in a similar manner in about the same period of time. Examination revealed that the tapered portion of the Fe-0.6C carbon steel shaft had been built up by welding prior to final machining. A detailed check by the engine-builder established that the manufacture of these two shafts had been subcontracted. It was ascertained that the taper portions had been machined to an incorrect angle and then subsequently built-up and remachined to the correct taper. The reduction in fatigue endurance following welding was due to heat-affected zone cracking, residual stresses, the lower fatigue strength of the weld deposited metal, and weld defects.

Visual examination, optical and scanning electron microscopy were used to determine the cause of failure in the connector groove of a marine riser coupling. The specified steel was AISI 4142 (0.40 to 0.45% C; 0.75 to 1.00% Mn; 0.20 to 0.35% Si; 0.80 to 1.10% Cr; 0.15 to 0.25% Mo) normalized from 9000C. Microscopic examination revealed the crack's initiation point and subsequent propagation. SEM examination of chemically stripped corrosion showed that corrosion fatigue and stress corrosion might have contributed to the initial slow crack growth. Impact tests revealed a fracture transition temperature in excess of 1000C. The sequence of events leading to failure was detailed. The main recommendation was to quench and temper existing couplings and to use a lower carbon quenched and tempered steel for new couplings.

An API type 2 steel clamp located on the riser of a semisubmersible drilling rig between the lower ball joint and riser blowout preventer (BOP) conductor failed after 7 years of service. Failure analysis revealed the cause of failure to be the low toughness of the clamp material. Contributing factors included the presence of a hard, brittle, heat-affected zone and weld defects at the handling pad eye. It was recommended that the replacement clamp be made from a material with good toughness and that any installation of attachments by welding be done according to qualified procedures.

Persistent cracking in a forged 1080 steel turntable rail in a wind tunnel test section was investigated. All cracks were oriented transverse to the axis of the rail, and some had propagated through the flange into the web. Through-flange cracks had been repair welded. A section of the flange containing one through-flange crack was examined using various methods. Results indicated that the cracks had initiated from intergranular quench cracks caused by the use of water as the quenching medium. Brittle propagation of the cracks was promoted by high residual stresses acting in conjunction with applied loads. Repair welding was discontinued to prevent the introduction of additional residual stress., Finite-element analysis was used to show that the rail could tolerate existing cracks. Periodic inspection to monitor the degree of cracking was recommended.

This article aims to identify and illustrate the types of overload failures, which are categorized as failures due to insufficient material strength and underdesign, failures due to stress concentration and material defects, and failures due to material alteration. It describes the general aspects of fracture modes and mechanisms. The article briefly reviews some mechanistic aspects of ductile and brittle crack propagation, including discussion on mixed-mode cracking. Factors associated with overload failures are discussed, and, where appropriate, preventive steps for reducing the likelihood of overload fractures are included. The article focuses primarily on the contribution of embrittlement to overload failure. The embrittling phenomena are described and differentiated by their causes, effects, and remedial methods, so that failure characteristics can be directly compared during practical failure investigation. The article describes the effects of mechanical loading on a part in service and provides information on laboratory fracture examination.

Several of the aluminum alloy 6061-T6 drawn seamless tubes (ASTM B 234, 2.5 cm (1.0 in.) OD with wall thickness of 1.7 mm (0.065 in.)) connecting an array of headers to a system of water-cooling pipes failed. The tubes were supplied in the O temper. They were bent to the desired curvature, preheated, then solution treated, water quenched, and then aged for 8 to 10 h. Analysis (visual inspection, slow-bend testing, 65x macrographic analysis, macroetching, spectrographic analysis, hardness tests, microhardness tests, tension tests, and microscopic examination) supported the conclusions that bending of the connector tubes in the annealed condition induced critical strain near the neutral axis of the tube, which resulted in excessive growth of individual grains during the subsequent solution treatment. Recommendations included bending the connector tubes in the T4 temper as early as possible after being quenched from the solution temperature. The tubes should be stored in dry ice after the quench until bending can be done. The tubes should be aged immediately after being formed. Flattening and slow-bend tests should be specified to ensure that the connector tubes had satisfactory ductility.