Structure Integrity of Pressure Vesels Repair Welding Joints

Abstract

Vertical cylindrical vessel-chambers as a part of coal — drying plants, whose purpose is to collect wastewater, are supported at 3 points in upper dish head area and are made of fine-grained Mn steel plates, joined by welding. Significant thinning and leaking in upper dish head area of the vessel occurred due to original design provoking an intensive abrasion, cracking and rupture. After reconstruction, in the upper zone of cylindrical shell, two new joints were made in sity by manual arc welding, with subsequent, local post-weld heat treatment. However, cracks appeared firstly in new welded zones in radial and axial joints, and then in zones of openings. Later, the similar failure features began to appear in the area of original welded joints. All of these cracks were repaired by properly specified technology. Unfortunately, after some period of exploitation the initiation of new cracks was observed, at first by the visual inspection. This problem was detected in the repaired areas in all (16) vertical cylindrical vessels. Cracks have propagated in different directions with various penetration depths, up to 3 mm. It is interesting to note that crack appeared in the HAZ of vertical joints, while in the area of radial welded joints the cracks were randomly distributed in a larger zone. For cracks up to 3 mm, deep grinding was applied whereas for greater crack depths repair welding with local post-weld heat treatment was used. Since welding with subsequent heat treatment could only be used twice to repair the welded joints [1, 2], it is clear that in the areas repaired several times (up to 7) proper mechanical characteristics of the material is rather difficult to maintain.