Cleavage Fracture Initiation at M–A Constituents in Intercritically Coarse-Grained Heat-Affected Zone of a HSLA Steel

Local brittle zones, i.e., martensite–austenite (M–A) islands, are formed within the coarse-grained heat-affected zone (CGHAZ) and the intercritically reheated CGHAZ (ICCGHAZ) during welding of many HSLA steels. In the current study, the M–A constituents in the microstructure of simulated ICCGHAZ of an API X80 pipeline steel were investigated using transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The focused ion beam technique was applied to make TEM specimens of M–A constituents that were located in the initiation sites of cleavage cracks. The main purpose of the study was to identify crack-initiation sites of cleavage fracture in ICCGHAZ and to prove the presence of M–A constituents in such initiation sites. Twinned martensite was detected in all local brittle zones that were investigated in the current study, demonstrating that they are M–A constituents. It was also demonstrated that the fracture initiation occurred preferentially at M–A constituents by a debonding mechanism rather than cracking of the M–A constituents.