Journal of Manufacturing Processes 32 (2018) 280–287

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Journal of Manufacturing Processes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/manpro

Evaluation of inhomogeneity in tensile strength and fracture

toughness of underwater wet friction taper plug welded joints for
low-alloy pipeline steels
Junzhen Xiong, Xinqi Yang ∗ , Wei Lin, Kaixuan Liu
Tianjin Key Laboratory of Advanced Joining Technology, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, People’s Republic
of China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The microstructural characteristics of underwater wet friction taper plug welded joints for API X52
Received 28 September 2017 pipeline steel were investigated and tensile strength and facture toughness of the welded joints were
Received in revised form 8 February 2018 experimentally evaluated. The microstructure of welded joints is considerably inhomogeneous. The ten-
Accepted 18 February 2018
sile strength of welded joints shows heterogeneity in thickness direction. All of the tensile specimens
taken from upper side of welded joints fracture at base material, while those taken from the bottom
Keywords:
are broken at bonding interface or base material. The fracture toughness of welded joints deteriorates
Underwater wet friction taper plug welding
seriously, as compared with base material. The welded joints with notches in weld center have higher
Tensile strength
Fracture toughness
fracture toughness than those in bonding zone and the axial force has few influences on fracture tough-
Inhomogeneity ness of welded joints. The bonding zone between plug and base plate should play a role as fissure defect
Pipeline steel for the whole welded joint, considering that it is tens of microns and much softer than its vicinity. In
addition, the coarse grain, quenched martensite and Widmanstätten ferrite in weld region should also
be responsible for the reduction of fracture toughness.
© 2018 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction [8]. Lessa observed the variation of parameters and gave attention
to the microstructure and quality of repair [9]. Unfried described
Friction taper plug welding (FTPW) technology developed from microstructural evolution of friction taper plug welded joints of
traditional rotating friction welding is a new solid-state weld- C-Mn steels [10]. Yeh et al. found and evaluated the discontinu-
ing process. The fundamental process is that the plug becomes ities within the repairs [11]. Chludzinski et al. analyzed the fracture
thermal-plastic due to the frictional heat generated by mutual fric- toughness characteristics of friction hydro-pillar process welded
tion between plug with high rotational speed and the hole bottom joints in C-Mn steels and concluded that the manganese sulfide
under axial force, and fills the hole eventually. Friction taper plug inclusions should be responsible for the decrease in toughness [12].
welding (FTPW) takes the advantages of much lower heat input, We also have carried out many experiments confirming the feasi-
high efficiency, excellent weld quality and smaller distortion as bility of FTPW and investigating welding process, microstructural
compared with underwater arc welding technology [1–3]. In partic- characteristics and mechanical properties of weld metal [13–17].
ular, FTPW is insensitive to water depth. Thus, FTPW is considered For low-alloy pipeline steel, it is found that the microstructure
as the most promising underwater wet repair and join technol- of FTP welds is significantly inhomogeneous and FTP welds are
ogy in deep water and has good prospects in the repair of marine obviously hardened. Besides, FTPW process brings a decrease in
structures and underwater oil and gas pipeline [4–7]. plasticity and toughness. However, researches about the deteriora-
Many researches have been made on FTPW and they are mainly tion of plasticity and toughness for underwater wet friction taper
focused on equipment, welding process, microstructural evolution, plug welded joints are scarcely reported. There is no comprehen-
effects of weld geometry on FTP welded joints and general mechan- sive evaluation on strength and toughness for the whole FTP welded
ical properties of welded joints. Zhou et al. developed a friction joints and the effects of microstructure on fracture toughness of
stitch welding equipment to satisfy tubular structures repairing welded joints for pipeline steel have not been discussed. On the
other hand, high strength and toughness are demanded for pipeline
steels due to higher pressure applied on pipeline steel in order to
∗ Corresponding author.
realize efficient transportation of oil and gas and the harsh work-
E-mail address: [email protected] (X. Yang).
ing condition underwater. Therefore, it is essential to evaluate the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2018.02.016
1526-6125/© 2018 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 J. Xiong et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 32 (2018) 280–287 281

Fig. 1. (a) Microstructure of base material, (b) Geometries of plug and hole, (c) Underwater wet condition.

tensile strength and fracture toughness of underwater wet friction joints, as shown in Fig. 2(a). Tensile tests were performed on uni-
taper plug welded joints for pipeline steel. versal testing machine with 5 mm/min loading speed. The sampling
The present study aims to evaluate the tensile strength and frac- positions and the dimensions of CTOD specimens determined by BS
ture toughness of underwater wet friction taper welded joints for 7448 standard are shown in Fig. 2(b). The straight notch was opened
pipeline steel and analyze the effects of microstructural charac- at weld center (WC) / bonding zone (BZ) of welded joints or the mid-
teristic on them. Microstructure of welded joints was observed in dle of base material CTOD specimen. A fatigue crack of restricted
detail and tensile tests taken from different thickness of welded shape and size was developed from the tip of the machined notch
joints were performed. Crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) is an on a GSP10 high frequency fatigue testing machine at room tem-
index of elastic-plastic fracture toughness, so that three point bend perature before the three point bend test. The maximum fatigue
tests were operated to calculate CTOD values to evaluate the fac- precracking force Fmax is determined by the following formula.
ture toughness of underwater wet friction taper plug welded joints
and base material in this study. Furthermore, the effects of welding B(W − a)2 (YS + TS )
Fmax =
parameters on tensile strength and fracture toughness of under- 4S
water wet friction taper plug welded joints for pipeline steel were
B specimen thickness
also explored. Finally, pre-crack propagation paths were analyzed
W specimen width
and the relationships between microstructure and tensile strength
a an assumed crack length
and the fracture toughness were discussed.
␴YS yield strength
␴TS tensile strength
S the span between outer loading points in three point bend test
2. Experimental procedures
In addition, the average load equals to 0.55Fmax, and the
alternating load equals to 0.45Fmax. The minimum fatigue crack
The base plates with the size of 200 × 25 × 28 mm and plugs
extension shall be the larger of 1.3 mm or 2.5% of the specimen
were cut from X52 grade pipeline steel. The microstructure of base
width W. Three point bend tests were performed on universal
material is polygonal ferrite (F) with banded pearlite (P), as shown
testing machine at room temperature with a 1.0 mm/min load-
in Fig. 1 (a).The underwater wet friction taper plug welding exper-
ing rate. The force-crack tip open displacement (F∼V) curves were
iments were performed with optimized welding parameters on a
recorded during the tests and the specimens were pressed off
machine designed and developed by Tianjin University in 2012. The
after three point bend tests to measure the original crack lengths.
optimized welding parameters are listed in Table 1 [14].The fixed
SEM was performed on a TDCLSU1510 scanning electronic micro-
geometries of hole and plug are shown in Fig. 1(b), according to our
scope to investigate the fracture morphologies of tensile specimens
previous research work. The base plate and plug were completely
and CTOD specimens. Post-test metallographic specimens were
immersed in water to simulate an underwater wet condition, as
prepared to observe crack propagation behavior by TDCLSU1510
shown in Fig. 1(c).
scanning electronic microscope, as shown in Fig. 2(c).
After the welding process, the metallographic specimens
obtained by being cut along center line of plug were water
milled, mechanically polished and etched with 3% nital solu- 3. Results and discussions
tion. The microstructure of welded joints was observed by optical
microscopy and Vickers micro-hardness tests were conducted on 3.1. Microstructural inhomogeneity
metallographic specimens at 2 mm, 7 mm, 12 mm and 17 mm
below top surface respectively with 1 Kg load held for 15 s. Ten- It is observed from Fig. 3(a) that defect-free welded joints are
sile specimens were taken from both upper and lower part of the obtained. The bonding interface which keeps the original shape

Table 1
Optimized welding parameters.

Rotational speed/rpm Welding force/kN Forging force/kN Forging time/s Burn-off/mm

6500 40 45 5 14
7000 30 35 5 14
7000 35 40 5 14
7000 40 45 5 14
7000 45 50 5 14
7500 35 40 5 14
7500 40 45 5 14
7500 45 50 5 14
282 J. Xiong et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 32 (2018) 280–287

Fig. 2. Schematic of (a) tensile specimen, (b) dimensions of CTOD specimen, (c) post-test metallographic specimens.

Fig. 3. Microstructure of (a) welded joint without heat treatment, (b) region A, (c) region B, (d) region C, (e) region D, (f) region E.

of hole is clearly observed. According to the deformation features vicinity of bonding interface (region D) is majorly composed of
of welded joints during the welding process, the frictional inter- coarse-grain martensite (M), which is caused by severe thermal
face plays the role of heat source and the bottom is frictionally cycle and high cooling rate, as shown in Fig. 3(e). Region F refers
heated firstly. In addition, the frictional interface becomes hemi- to the heat-affected zone of the plug. During the welding process,
spherical subsequently and rises up gradually with the welding a significant amount of heat generated by friction will be trans-
process. Therefore, microstructure of welded joint shows great ported to the plug, considering that the plug and basic plate are
inhomogeneity due to variety of thermal-mechanical coupling the same material with the same thermal conductivity. What’s
states. Fig. 3(b)–(d) show the microstructures of joints in differ- more, the grains close to bonding interface are larger than those
ent regions. Region A located in the upper side of welded joint is in weld center because the relative velocity between the plug and
less affected by frictional heat due to far away from frictional inter- base plate rises with distance from plug center line resulting in
face (heat source) and characterized by relatively homogeneous greater heat generation near bonding interface. At the lower part
microstructure mainly consisting of lath martensite (M) and upper of weld region(region E), some ferrite-rich regions are generated
bainite (UB), as shown in Fig. 3(b). Region B has coarse grains with along the frictional interface and the ferrite-rich regions are char-
the size of more than 100␮m because of serious thermal cycles acterized by grain boundary ferrite (GBF), bainitic ferrite (BF) and
and is characterized by martensite (M), upper bainite (UB), grain Widmanstätten ferrite (WF), as shown in Fig. 3(f).
boundary ferrite (GBF) and a small quantity of Widmanstätten fer- Fig. 4 shows the contour map of hardness in the cross-section
rites (WF), as shown in Fig. 3(c). The bonding zone (BZ) which refers of friction taper plug welded joints with 7000 rpm rotational speed
to the bonding interface is a narrow band (only tens of microns) and 40kN axial force. Fig. 4 demonstrates that the distribution of
of fine-grained ferrites as a result of recrystallization and decar- hardness is strongly related to the shape of plug and hole. The hard-
bonization [17], as shown in Fig. 3(d). The heat-affect zone in the ness of base material is about 190 HV1. Frictional interface plays
 J. Xiong et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 32 (2018) 280–287 283

direction. The yield strength of specimen taken from upper side

of welded joint is about 600 MPa, while that of the down side is
about 450MPa. All of the tensile specimens taken from the upper
side of joints fracture at base material (Fig. 6(a)), while those taken
from the down side break at bonding interface or base material
(Fig. 6(b)). In addition, the tensile specimens taken from upper side
have a better strength-ductility balance than those from down side.
The martensite with high density dislocations in weld region
efficiently hinders the movement of dislocations for the tensile
specimen in the upper side, resulting in high hardness and strength.
Thus, deformation mainly takes place at softer base material and
the upper side of welded joint realizes an overmatching condition.
However, some metallurgical bonding flaws are easily formed at
rounded transient [18]. Besides, the microstructure of the down
side of joint is less uniform than that of the upper side and the bond-
ing interface at rounded transient presents hemispherical shape
with an approximate 45◦ angle which is consistent with the direc-
Fig. 4. Contour map of hardness for welded joints.
tion of maximum shear stress. Most importantly, mutual diffusion
of atoms and effective metallurgical bonding at rounded transient
are not adequate due to rapid heating and cooling at the initial stage
the role of heat resource during the welding process. The upper of welding process. Therefore, tensile specimens at the bottom of
side of joint has low hardness because it is far away from frictional joints are more easily broken at bonding interface.
interface, experiencing flat thermal cycle. However, the hardness in Fig. 7 shows the fracture morphology of tensile specimens. The
most weld region is more than 300 HV1 and is considerably higher specimens broken at base material display obvious plastic defor-
than base material. The behaviors result from the quench hardened mation and the fracture surface is characterized by huge and deep
microstructure produced by severe thermal-mechanical coupling dimples as a result of micro-void coalescence, as shown in Fig. 7(a).
action and water cooling. The maximum hardness which is more Fig. 7(b) presents the fracture of tensile specimens broken at bond-
than 450 HV1 is located in the plug weld region near bonding inter- ing interface and the crack propagates along bonding interface
face because of the existence of coarse martensite. The distribution towards base material. Traces of frictional shear layers can be
of hardness is consistent with microstructural features of welded clearly observed and the bonding layer connecting plug and base
joints. plate is peeled from the plug or hole. The fracture exhibits small and
shadow dimples (fig. 7(c)) which is consistent with fine-grained fer-
3.2. Tensile strength rite band and implies that metallurgical bonding has been formed
between plug and hole. The fracture surface in Fig. 7(d) is flat
Fig. 5 illustrates the stress-strain curves of welded joints with and discontinuous dimples have been found locally indicating poor
optimized welding parameters. The results demonstrate that ten- bonding quality of welded joints.
sile strength of welded joints shows heterogeneity in thickness

Fig. 5. Stress-strain curves of (a) upper side, (b) the bottom side of joints.

Fig. 6. Fracture position of tensile test specimens taken from (a) upper side, (b) down side.
284 J. Xiong et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 32 (2018) 280–287

Fig. 7. Fracture morphology of tensile specimen broken at (a) base material, (b)–(d) bonding interface.

3.3. Fracture toughness

3.3.1. CTOD values

According to BS 7448 standard, CTOD values of three point bend-
ing specimens are calculated through the Eq. (1) and (2), as shown
below.
 FS a0
2 (1 − )2 0.4(W − a0 )Vp
␦= ×f( ) + (1)
BW 1.5 W 2YS E 0.4W + 0.6a0 + z
 a2

0.5
a  a
3( W0 )
a
1.99 − ( W0 )(1 −
a0
W
a
)(2.15 − 3.93 W0 + 2.7 0
W2
)
0
f = (2)
W 2a0 a 1.5
2(1 + W
)(1 − W0 )

where B is thickness of specimen; W is the width of specimen;

S=4W; a0 is the original crack length;  is Poisson’s ratio;  YS is
the yield strength; E is Young modulus; z = 1.6∼2.0 mm; f(a0 /W) is
given by Eq. (2); F and Vp are the maximum force and corresponding Fig. 8. CTOD values of base material and welded joints with 7000 rpm rotational
crack tip opening displacement respectively. speed and 30/40kN axial force.
Fig. 8 shows the average CTOD values of base material and FTP
welded joints with 7000 rpm rotational speed and 30/40kN axial
force obtained from three point bend tests. The average CTOD value 3.3.2. Fracture morphology
of base material is 0.922 mm. However, the average CTOD values The macro fracture morphologies of BM and welded joints with
of FTP welded joints vary from 0.027 mm to 0.103 mm and they 7000 rpm rotational speed and 40kN axial force are illustrated in
are much smaller than 0.935 mm. The results indicate that frac- Fig. 9. Obvious deformation is observed in fracture morphologies
ture toughness of welded joints deteriorates seriously as compared of BM which proves that BM has excellent plasticity and toughness
with base material. Moreover, the fracture toughness of welded (Fig. 9(a)). The fracture surface of weld center can be divided into
joints shows significant heterogeneity. For the welded joint with two regions (Fig. 9(b)) according to the appearance. Region A (upper
7000 rpm rotational speed and 30 kN axial force, the average CTOD side of joint) which presents radiation pattern is smoother than
of welded joints with notches in weld center is 0.084 mm which region B (down side of joint) which exhibits distinctive metallic
is larger than 0.040 mm in bonding zone showing that the fracture luster, as shown in the magnification of red box. These behaviors
toughness of weld center is better than that in bonding zone. The are due to the inhomogeneity of microstructure in plug weld region
welded joints with 40kN axial force also show the similar trend. In as mentioned above. The welded joints with notches in the bonding
addition, the CTOD values change little with axial force increasing zone generally fracture along the bonding interface and the fracture
from 30 kN to 40 kN. Therefore, it can be concluded that axial force surface intersperses with numerous small sections with metallic
has few influences on fracture toughness of welded joints for X52 luster which are demonstrated to be cleavage regions, as shown in
pipeline steel. Fig. 9(c).
 J. Xiong et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 32 (2018) 280–287 285

river-like pattern (Fig. 11(b)), while region B shows clear tearing

edge around the river-like pattern (Fig. 11(c)). Thus, the welded
joints with notches in weld center belong to a compound fracture
of cleavage and quasi-cleavage fracture presenting some degree of
ductility. The generation of tearing edge is related to grain bound-
ary ferrite formed in the bottom of welded joints due to friction
and shear actions. When coarse and hard microstructure locates
around the fatigue crack tip, the microcrack nucleates and prop-
agates under shear stress, as shown in Fig. 11(d). For the welded
joints with notches in bonding zone, the crack generally propagates
along bonding interface and only a small part of crack propagates
along inner plug in the vicinity of bonding interface. Furthermore,
there is nearly no plastic deformation, as shown in Fig. 11(e). Region
C presents fan-shaped pattern and belongs to cleavage fracture, as
shown in Fig. 11(f), while region D shows both cleavage sections
and fine dimples, as shown in Fig. 11(g). Therefore, the welded
joints with notches in the bonding zone belong to a compound frac-
Fig. 9. Macro fracture morphologies of (a) BM, welded joints with notches in (b) ture including cleavage and ductile fracture. The formation of fine
weld center, (c) BZ. dimples agrees well with the fine-grained ferrite in the bonding
interface. In addition, many secondary cracks can be observed in
region C. Fig. 11(h) shows the location of crack initiation for CTOD
specimen with notch in bonding zone. Various fracture morpholo-
gies appear simultaneously in fracture surface of welded joints
because of the inhomogeneous microstructure.

3.3.3. Crack propagation behavior

Fig. 12 shows the crack propagation paths of CTOD specimens.
The white arrows present the crack propagation direction. The
crack propagation is characterized by shear (shearing rim) and val-
ley (dimples) showing a ductile behavior and ferrite and pearlite
exhibit evident plastic deformation for base material, as shown in
Fig. 12(a) and (b). The pre-crack generally propagates along weld
center during three point bend test for the welded joints with
notches in the weld center, as shown in Fig. 12(c). It can be observed
from Fig. 12(d) that crack propagation path is a combination of con-
Fig. 10. SEM fracture morphology of base material. cave and short straight line, indicating a certain degree of plastic
deformation. The short straight line (about 30 ␮) indicates marten-
Fig. 10 shows the SEM morphology of base material. Dimples site (cleavage fracture) and the concave refers to grain-boundary
induced by micro voids gathering together can be observed as well ferrite (quasi-cleavage fracture), which matches the fracture mor-
as tearing rim. And the dimples near the crack tip become folded phologies in Fig. 11(b) and (c). In Fig. 12(e), it is noticed that the
due to the large plastic deformation under shear stress concentra- fatigue pre-crack is actually positioned in the bonding interface.
tion condition, which agrees with large CTOD values. Unlike welded joints with notches in the weld center, the crack
Fig. 11(a) shows the SEM fracture morphology of welded joint in welded joint with notch in bonding zone propagates along the
with notch in bonding zone. Region A presents cleavage steps and bonding zone remaining the circular shape of plug and the prop-

Fig. 11. SEM fracture morphologies of welded joints in (a) weld center, (b) region A, (c) region B, (d) crack initiation, (e) bonding zone, (f) region C, (g) region D, (h) crack
initiation.
286 J. Xiong et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 32 (2018) 280–287

Fig. 12. Crack propagation path of (a), (b) base material, welded joints with notches in (c), (d) weld center, (e), (f) bonding zone.

agation path shows nearly no plastic deformation, as shown in

Fig. 12(f).
Fig. 13 shows the hardness contrast of bonding zone and its
vicinity. The hardness of bonding zone (272.1HV1) is much lower
than its vicinity (larger than 400HV1). The crack tends to propa-
gate along soft bonding zone because of high mechanical contrast
between the soft ferrite phase and hard martensite phase. Con-
sidering that the bonding zone is narrow (tens of microns) and
much softer than its vicinity, the bonding zone should play a role
as fissure defect. In addition, part of the crack propagates along
inner plug near the bonding interface, as shown in Fig. 11(e). This
behavior demonstrates that the bonding quality is excellent and
the inner plug near the bonding interface should also be a key fac-
tor to influence the fracture toughness. The inner plug near bonding
interface is characterized by coarse grain, quenched martensite and
Widmanstätten ferrite with rapid cooling rate offering few grain
boundaries to hinder crack propagate. Thus, micro-cracks prefer to
Fig. 13. Hardness contrast of bonding zone and its vicinity.
 J. Xiong et al. / Journal of Manufacturing Processes 32 (2018) 280–287 287

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Acknowledgement

The authors acknowledge the financial support from National

Natural Science Foundation of China (51475327).