Crack-Tip Opening Displacement of Girth Welds in a Lean X70 Pipeline Steel

Crack-tip opening displacement (CTOD) tests were conducted on girth welds of two API 5L X70 pipeline steels (pipe A and pipe B) to investigate the influence of base metal composition on the fracture toughness of the joint. CTOD measurements across the weld showed that the weld fusion zone had the lowest CTOD values for both pipes, with pipe B having a higher CTOD value than pipe A. Detailed microstructure characterization of the multi-pass weld showed that the fusion zone in both pipes consisted of three distinct zones: the columnar zone, the coarse equiaxed zone, and the fine equiaxed zone. Both the columnar zone and coarse-grained equiaxed zone had acicular ferrite and grain boundary ferrite microstructures, whereas the fine-grained equiaxed zone had a finer ferrite microstructure compared to the other two zones. The main difference between the two pipes was the variation in ferrite grain sizes and the volume fractions of grain boundary ferrite and acicular ferrite. In comparison to pipe B, pipe A, with a higher concentration of Mo, Ni, and Cu in both the base metal and the weld fusion zones, consisted of a higher volume fraction of grain boundary ferrite and a lower volume fraction of acicular ferrite in the columnar and coarse-grained equiaxed zones. The lower concentration of Mo, Ni, and Cu in pipe B likely resulted in the formation of a predominantly acicular ferrite microstructure in the fusion zone, thereby improving the toughness of the weld joint in comparison to pipe A.