Abstract
Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) is the result of the combined influence of tensile stress and a corrosive environment on a susceptible material. Austenitic stainless steels including types 304L and 316L are susceptible alloys commonly used in nuclear weldments. An engineered residual stress field can be introduced into the surface of components that can reliably produce thermo-mechanically stable, deep compressive residual stresses to mitigate SCC. The stability of the residual stresses is dependant on the amount of cold working produced during surface enhancement processing.
Three different symmetrical geometries of weld mockups were processed using low plasticity burnishing (LPB) to produce the desired compressive residual stress field on half of each specimen. SCC testing in boiling MgCl2 was performed to compare the LPB treated and un-treated 304L and 316L stainless steel weldments. X-ray diffraction residual stress analyses were used to document the respective residual stress fields and percent cold working of each condition. Testing was performed to quantify the thermo-mechanical stability of the residual stresses. The un-treated weldments suffered severe SCC damage due to the residual tension from the welding operation. The results show conclusively that LPB completely mitigated SCC in the tested weldments and provided thermo-mechanically stable, deep residual compression.
