This article provides information on the application of nondestructive examination (NDE) technologies to tube and pipe products. These include modeling and simulation methods, eddy-current methods, magnetic methods, acoustic methods, and physical methods. A summary of nondestructive examination methods based on flaw type and product stage is presented in a table. The article also discusses in-service inspection of tubular products and presents an example that illustrates the importance of nondestructive testing (NDT) for welds in austenitic stainless steel tubing.

This article addresses several distinct aspects of corrosion that should be taken into account when solving the corrosion problems in the food and beverage industries. It summarizes the role of international standards in developing food and beverage industries: the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), American Welding Society (AWS), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The article tabulates the approximate pH values of various foods. It describes the contamination of food products by corrosion. A discussion on specific stainless steels, their corrosion resistance, fabrication, and applications is presented and compared to other potential materials of construction. The article also presents case studies of stainless steel corrosion and concludes with a discussion on corrosion in cleaning and sanitizing processes.

This article discusses the selection of types of stainless steel for various methods of forming based on the formability and on the power required for forming. It reviews the requirements of lubrication, blanking, and piercing. The article describes various forming methods, namely, press-brake forming, press forming, multiple-slide forming, deep drawing, spinning, rubber-pad forming, drop hammer forming¸ three-roll forming, contour roll forming, stretch forming, and bending of tubing.

This article discusses the composition, characteristics, and properties of the five groups of wrought stainless steels: martensitic stainless steels, ferritic stainless steels, austenitic stainless steels, duplex stainless steels, and precipitation-hardening stainless steels. The selection of stainless steels may be based on corrosion resistance, fabrication characteristics, availability, mechanical properties in specific temperature ranges and product cost. The fabrication characteristics of stainless steels include formability, forgeability, machinability, and weldability. The product forms of wrought stainless steels are plate, sheet, strip, foil, bar, wire, semifinished products, pipes, tubes, and tubing. The article describes tensile properties, elevated-temperature properties, subzero-temperature properties, physical properties, corrosion properties, and fatigue strength of stainless steels. It characterizes the experience of a few industrial sectors according to the corrosion problems most frequently encountered and suggests appropriate grade selections. Corrosion testing, surface finishing, mill finishes, and interim surface protection of stainless steels are also discussed.

Penetration-enhanced gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) processes have been referred to variously as flux tungsten inert gas (TIG), A-TIG, and GTAW with a penetration-enhancing compound. This article provides a discussion on the principles of operation, advantages, disadvantages, procedures, and applications of GTAW. It also includes information on the equipment used and health and safety issues associated with GTAW.

Pack cementation is the most widely employed method of diffusion coating. This article briefly reviews pack cementation processes of aluminizing, chromizing, and siliconizing. It contains tables that list typical characteristics of pack cementation processes and commercial applications of pack cementation aluminizing, which is used to improve the performance of steels in high-temperature corrosive environments.

This article addresses the major heat-transfer components of the water-steam loop of a power plant. It describes the various types of condensers, including water-cooled condensers and air-cooled condensers. The article explains the corrosion mechanisms encountered in the condensers, including erosion-corrosion, galvanic corrosion, and pitting corrosion. It discusses the types of deaerators and deals with their corrosion problems. The article provides a discussion on two types of feedwater heaters: channel feedwater heaters and header feedwater heaters. It summarizes the corrosion problems associated with common feedwater heater tube materials.

Stainless steels are widely used at elevated temperatures when carbon and low-alloy steels do not provide adequate corrosion resistance and/or sufficient strength at these temperatures. This article deals with the wrought stainless steels used for high temperature applications. It gives some typical compositions of wrought heat-resistant stainless steels, which are grouped into ferritic, martensitic, austenitic, and precipitation-hardening (PH) grades. Quenched and tempered martensitic stainless steels are essentially martensitic and harden when air cooled from the austenitizing temperature. These alloys offer good combinations of mechanical properties. The article focuses on mechanical property considerations and corrosion resistance considerations of stainless steels. The corrosion and oxidation resistance of wrought stainless steels is similar to that of cast stainless steels with comparable compositions.

Heat exchangers are devices used to transfer thermal energy between two or more fluids, between a solid surface and a fluid, or between a solid particulate and a fluid at different temperatures. This article first addresses the causes of failures in heat exchangers. It then provides a description of heat-transfer surface area, discussing the design of the tubular heat exchanger. Next, the article discusses the processes involved in the examination of failed parts. Finally, it describes the most important types of corrosion, including uniform, galvanic, pitting, stress, and erosion corrosion.

This article is an atlas of fractographs that helps in understanding the causes and mechanisms of fracture of austenitic stainless steels and in identifying and interpreting the morphology of fracture surfaces. The fractographs illustrate the following: fatigue-crack fracture, rock candy fracture, cleavage fracture, brittle fracture, high-cycle fatigue fracture, fatigue striations, hydrogen-embrittlement failure, creep crack propagation, fatigue crack nucleation, intergranular creep fracture, torsional overload fracture, stress-corrosion cracking, and grain-boundary damage of these steels. The austenitic stainless steel components include spring wires, preheater-reactor slurry transfer lines and gas lines of coal-liquefaction pilot plants, oil feed tubes and suction couch rolls of paper machines, cortical screws and compression hip screws of orthopedic implants, and Jewett nails.

This article reviews the metallurgical factors associated with welding. It provides a discussion on the preferential attack associated with weld metal precipitates in austenitic stainless steels. The article describes the corrosion associated with postweld and weld backing rings. The effects of gas-tungsten arc weld shielding gas composition and heat-tint oxides on corrosion resistance are also discussed. The article explains microbiological corrosion of butt welds in water tanks with the examples. In addition, it provides information on corrosion of ferritic stainless steel weldments and duplex stainless steel weldments.

The various methods of furnace, torch, induction, resistance, dip, and laser brazing are used to produce a wide range of highly reliable brazed assemblies. However, imperfections that can lead to braze failure may result if proper attention is not paid to the physical properties of the material, joint design, prebraze cleaning, brazing procedures, postbraze cleaning, and quality control. Factors that must be considered include brazeability of the base metals; joint design and fit-up; filler-metal selection; prebraze cleaning; brazing temperature, time, atmosphere, or flux; conditions of the faying surfaces; postbraze cleaning; and service conditions. This article focuses on the advantages, limitations, sources of failure, and anomalies resulting from the brazing process. It discusses the processes involved in the testing and inspection required of the braze joint or assembly.

This article discusses the methods of pulp production, pulp processing, pulp bleaching, and paper manufacturing. It describes various types of digesters, their construction materials, the corrosion problems encountered, and methods to protect these digesters from corrosion. The article examines the corrosion problems in high-yield mechanical pulping, sulfite process, neutral sulfite semichemical pulping, chemical recovery, tall oil plants, wastewater treatment, and recovery boilers. It explains the stages of chlorine-based and nonchlorine bleaching, process water reuse for elemental chlorine-free and nonchlorine bleaching stages, selection of material for bleaching equipment, developments in oxygen bleaching, and the use of highly corrosion-resistant materials for bleach plant equipment. The article reviews the materials used in the construction of paper machine components and specific corrosion problems that affect them. It discusses the composition and corrosive nature of white water. The article also addresses the corrosion and chemical recovery associated with kraft pulping liquors.

Stress-corrosion cracking (SCC) is a form of corrosion and produces wastage in that the stress-corrosion cracks penetrate the cross-sectional thickness of a component over time and deteriorate its mechanical strength. Although there are factors common among the different forms of environmentally induced cracking, this article deals only with SCC of metallic components. It begins by presenting terminology and background of SCC. Then, the general characteristics of SCC and the development of conditions for SCC as well as the stages of SCC are covered. The article provides a brief overview of proposed SCC propagation mechanisms. It discusses the processes involved in diagnosing SCC and the prevention and mitigation of SCC. Several engineering alloys are discussed with respect to their susceptibility to SCC. This includes a description of some of the environmental and metallurgical conditions commonly associated with the development of SCC, although not all, and numerous case studies.

This article explains the main types and characteristic causes of failures in boilers and other equipment in stationary and marine power plants that use steam as the working fluid with examples. It focuses on the distinctive features of each type that enable the failure analyst to determine the cause and suggest corrective action. The causes of failures include tube rupture, corrosion or scaling, fatigue, erosion, and stress-corrosion cracking. The article also describes the procedures for conducting a failure analysis.

This article discusses special considerations relative to induction heating of stainless steels and nickel-base superalloys. It focuses on the various industrial and high-temperature applications of induction heating to stainless steel and superalloy components, namely, primary melting processes, preheating for primary and secondary forming processes, heat treatments, brazing, and thermal processing for fusion welds. The article also provides information on computational modeling of induction heating processes for super alloys and stainless steels.