Texture of welded joints of 316L stainless steel, multi-scale orientation analysis of a weld metal deposit

Abstract

Weld material of type 316L is widely used in stainless steel X weldments in fast breeder reactors. As it is difficult to cut test specimens from an X weldment, the two-phase microstructure of 316L welds was simulated by manually filling a mould with longitudinally deposited weld beads. The material consists of γ columnar grains which form a matrix where δ-ferrite dendrites can be found. The crystallographic texture of the material was investigated on the basis of a multi-scale approach. Neutron diffraction analysis showed that on a macroscopic scale both phases had predominantly the same fibre texture with some reinforcements, {1 0 0} γ being parallel to {1 0 0} δ. Further analysis on an increasingly fine scale were then carried out by EBSD and by TEM, showing that the ferrite dendrites were nearly parallel to the neighbouring austenite columnar grains