Failure Analysis of Weld Cracking in a Thick-Walled 2.25Cr-1Mo Steel Pressure Vessel

A crack in thick-walled 2.25Cr-1Mo steel pressure vessel girth weld was found during manufacturing. To investigate the cause of failure, optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometer, transmission electron microscopy, and microhardness tester were used in this study. According to test results, the fracture is classified as reheat cracking with multiple origins. The cracking occurred during surfacing or final post-weld heat treatment process. Coarse-grains in the weld and bulk-carbides precipitated along grain boundaries induced by multiple heating are main causes of the fracture from material aspect, while high level of the hoop stress component and excess localized deformation in stress relief procedure are mechanical aspect causes of the cracking. The fracture surfaces present major intergranular feature with a small fraction of transgranular morphologies. Large numbers of M₃C and M₂₃C₆ carbides particles were found on the fracture surface, these carbides mainly precipitated on prior austenite-grain boundaries, columnar-grain boundaries, and sub-grain boundaries. Additionally, several proposals were also offered to reduce weld cracking of 2.25Cr-1Mo steel pressure vessels.