Investigation of Correlation Between Fracture Toughness and Charpy Impact Energy of Cryogenic Steel Welds

The high manganese steel was developed to improve the fracture toughness and safety at cryogenic temperatures, the austenite structure was formed by increasing the manganese (Mn) content. The developed weld high manganese steel was alloyed with austenite stabilizing elements (e.g., C, Mn, and Ni) for cryogenic toughness and fluxes contained less than 10% of acidic slag formers such as rutile (TiO₂) and silica (SiO₂). This paper describes the work carried out to enhance the fracture toughness of Mn contents in an economical way by means of increase of manganese up to 23% instead of using nickel (Ni) which has unique element to improve fracture toughness especially at cryogenic steel. The new cryogenic steels should be carefully evaluated in terms of safety for application in real structures including LNG ships. In this study, the fracture toughness performance was evaluated for recently developed cryogenic steels (high-Mn steels), especially the crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) parameter was evaluated using the prediction formula proposed by conventional equation. The CTOD value was investigated the effect of microstructure and mechanical properties of Fe-C-Mn and Fe-C-Mn-Ni high manganese steel, it was revealed that the e-martesnsite phase formed in high manganese steel of 0.2C-20Mn and 0.4C-20Mn as a result of a low stability of austenite upon strain-induced phase transformation.