Determination of Weld Metal Mechanical Properties Utilising Novel Tensile Testing Methods

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a method of extracting local mechanical properties from weld metal by strain mapping using the digital image correlation (DIC) technique. The feasibility of determining local stress-strain behaviour in the weld zone of a 316H stainless steel pipe with a girth weld was investigated by tensile tests of specimens machined from the pipe so that it contained the weld at its centre. The tensile test was recorded using a high resolution digital camera and the DIC technique was used to obtain the complete set of full field displacement maps during the tensile test. The local strain was calculated at every sub-region of 32×32 pixels, which enabled the local stress-strain behaviour for this region to be determined. Results from these tests show the variability of the elastic modulus, yield stress and UTS across the weld. To check the reliability of the technique, a set of micro tensile samples, with gauge length of 3.7mm and crosssectional area of 0.7×0.7 mm2, were machined from the various locations in and around the weld zone. The comparison of stress-strain curves determined from micro-samples to stress-strain curves from the corresponding locations within a larger more conventional tensile specimen shows reasonably good agreement.