The Effect of Post Weld Heat Treatment (PWHT) on the Microstructure, Microhardness and Sulphide Stress Corrosion Cracking (SSCC) of Ni-Base Superalloy IN625 Hot Wire TIG Cladding on AISI 4130 Steel

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) on the microstructure, microhardness, and sulfide stress corrosion cracking (SSCC) of IN625 weld overlay on AISI 4130. In this paper, cladding was conducted by TIG (tungsten inert gas arc welding) technique, then PWHT was carried out at 650, 750, and 850°C temperatures with the constant time of 1 h. Also, the SSCC test was performed for 720 h. According to the results, columnar dendrites with MC carbide in g solid solution matrix comprise the microstructure. Furthermore, there was not any crack in the Weld Overlay (WO), tempered martensite, bainite in the base metal (BM), coarse tempered martensite, and ferrite in the heat-affected zone (HAZ). The results demonstrate that as the temperature of PWHT rises, the hardness of BM and HAZ reduces while hardness in the WO increases; it can be seen that at 750°C γ'' phase rapidly emerged and changed to stable δ at 850°C by the shearing mechanism. Furthermore, the results of the magnetic test showed stress crack in samples that heat-treated at 850°C. SEM images reveal that stress cracks in BM continued along grain boundaries and reached the WO.