609-Analysis of Cracks Resulting From Thermite Welding of Cathodic Protection

609.1

Analysis of Cracks Resulting from Thermite Welding of Cathodic

Protection

Marjan Suban, Simon Božič, Andrej Zajec, Robert Cvelbar, Borut Bundara Institute of Metal Constructions

Mencingerjeva 7, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia

[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected],

[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Various steel pipes that are exposed to corrosion, are protected with the cathodic

protection where thermite welding of a copper conductor on a steel pipe is used. During the

welding process and due to the nature of it, steel in the solid state comes in a contact with

liquid copper. Contact of steel with liquid metal in some cases cause phenomenon known as

the liquid-metal embrittlement or LME. Phenomenon was previously studied in cases such as

soldering, but for thermite welding no records were found in accessible literature. The

purpose of this paper is to draw attention to some irregularities and consequences arising from

it, which in this type of welding can occur. At the end of article some measures to reduce

these risks are given.

1 INTRODUCTION

To prevent corrosion of the material several methods by which the material may be

protected are used in practice. One of these methods is the cathodic protection, which is

commonly used to protect steel, water or fuel pipelines and storage tanks, steel pier piles,

water-based vessels including yachts and powerboats, offshore oil platforms and onshore oil

well casings.

There are two types of cathodic protection: passive protection with active (sacrificial)

anode and protection with an external source of direct electrical current. Cathodic protection

with active (sacrificial) anode is more simple and requires the use of an anode material (Mg or

Zn anode), which protects the cathode (in our case steel). One of the methods to connect

cathode with the anode is thermite welding of the connecting copper wires to the cathode.

In order to determine the potential impact of thermite welding of Cu wires on the steel,

we performed a series of tests of this type of welding. Test data collected during a study of

welding procedure on nuclear power plant construction projects (pipeline of SW system) are

presented and evaluated. These data lead to an important hypothesis that solely visual

inspection is not sufficient because it does not enable identification of some crucial

procedural deficiencies. Therefore, inspection has to be extended by implementation of some

other methods like macro- and microscopic examination of weld cross-section that enable

detection and identification of some material defects, which can lead to failure.

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Proceedings of the International Conference Nuclear Energy for New Europe, Portorož, Slovenia, Sept. 6-9, 2010

2 THERMITE WELDING

Thermite welding, also known as exothermic welding, of Cu to steel is a welding

process for joining these two materials, that employs superheated copper to permanently join

the welding parts. The process takes advantage of an exothermic reaction of a copper thermite

composition to heat the copper, and requires no external source of heat or current. The

chemical reaction that produces the heat is a reaction between aluminium powder and a

mixture of copper oxides: copper (II) oxide and copper (I) oxide. Reaction is described with

the following chemical formula:

3CuO + 2Al → 3Cu + Al2O3 + Heat (1)

This chemical reaction reaches a temperature above 1400 °C. This type of welding is

especially useful for joining dissimilar metals e.g. Cu and steel for creating electric joints, like

in our case for cathodic protection and can be found on market under various commercial

names such as Cadweld or Techweld. Thermite welding process itself is shown in figure

bellow and includes the following steps:

• grinding, cleaning and drying the surface of base material and installation of Cu

wire (Fig. 1a);

• installation of the welding mould and filling it with the thermite mixture (Fig. 1b);

• ignition and combustion of the thermite mixture (welding) (Fig. 1c);

• removing the welding mould and sealants (Fig. 1d).

a) b) c) d)

Figure 1: Steps of thermite welding procedure

If the welding process is optimal then formed weld has good mechanical strength and

excellent corrosion resistance. It is also highly stable when subjected to repeated short-circuit

pulses, and does not suffer from increased electrical resistance over the lifetime of the

installation.

However, the cost of the process is relative high comparing to other welding processes,

requires supply of replaceable moulds, suffers from lack of repeatability, and can be impeded

by wet conditions or bad weather when performed outdoors. In our experimental work

presented in continuation we observed that quality of the weld is influenced by the surface

preparation and that microstructural changes and microcracks in steel appear. Because of the

good electrical conductivity and high stability in the case of short-circuit pulses, this type of

welds are one of the options for grounding conductors and bonding jumpers. It is the preferred

method of bonding, and indeed it is the only acceptable means of bonding copper to steel.

3 EXPERIMENTAL METHOD

The welding setup shown in Fig. 1 was used for the laboratory tests. Copper conductor

NYY 1x16 mm was welded on 24 in, SCH 40 steel pipe made of ASTM A106 Gr. B

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(P255G1TH). Cadweld exothermic system was used for welding. Tests were performed with

new and multiple-times used moulds. Preheating temperature of steel pipe was set to: room

temperature (15 oC), 40

oC, 60

oC and 80

oC.

While some engineering specifications require just visual or perhaps even X-ray

examination of completed exothermic weld, we performed the following examinations in

addition:

• macroscopic examinations of the welds;

• microscopic investigation of joints (a review of material microstructure, the depth

of penetration of copper into steel, the occurrence of cracks);

• measurements of hardness at the respective sites of the weld cross-section.

4 RESULTS

4.1 Macroscopic examinations

In the macroscopic investigations the following characteristics of welded joints were

observed:

• shape of the weld;

• porosity of the weld;

• lack of joint with steel base;

• size of the heat affected zone (HAZ) in the base metal.

Uneven weld shape and porosity of the weld can be attributed due to the over-used

welding mould (Fig. 2a). Fig 2b shows the appearance of the weld with insufficient area of

completed joint between copper and steel base material which lead to weld breakdown. Cause

for that is in improper welding surface preparation. From the weld macro-section it is easy to

measure size of HAZ in steel base material as shown on Fig. 2a for bad weld and on Fig. 2c

for weld of good quality.

a) b) c)

Figure 2: Some examples of defects revealed by macroscopic examination

4.2 Microscopic examinations

In the microscopic examination the cross sections of all samples processed under

different conditions were examined with an optical microscope. Microscopic examination of

joints showed the following:

• The copper and steel formed intermediate layer, which contains the penetrated

copper. The thickness of this layer is from 10 to 20 µm.

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Figure 3: Measurements of thickness of Cu-Fe fusion zone (intermediate layer)

• In some places, just below the steel surface, martensite microstructure occurs due to

rapid cooling (see Fig. 3 and 4).

• Just below the surface of the base material an increased grain size can be found (see

Fig. 4b).

• In the martensite microstructure microcracks were observed. Their length was up to

0,12 mm. The microcracks were filled with copper. In the samples without

martensite microstructure microcracks were not detected. Figure 4 shows the cross-

section optical micrographs of joints with presence of microcracks filled with

copper.

a) b)

Figure 4: Microcracks in steel filled with copper

When examining the microstructure of the base material, we noticed that just below the

welds cracking occurs in which the liquid copper was penetrated [1, 2]. This phenomenon

(liquid-metal embrittlement - LME) occurs due to contact of liquid metal (Cu) with a solid

metal (steel), as copper and steel have different melting temperatures (difference is

approximately 450 °C). At certain location the formation of hard martensite microstructure

appears, which also represent the initials for the cracks. Steels are severely embrittled by

liquid copper, and extremely high rates of crack growth up to 100 mm/s can occur during

LME so that cracks are essentially instantaneous [3, 4]. In this case, fracture is facilitated by

adsorption-induced weakening of interatomic bonds at crack tips, with transport of liquid

metal (copper) to crack tips occurring rapidly by capillary flow. Diffusion of atoms along

grain boundaries ahead of cracks is not involved, although this can occur in some

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circumstances (specific couples of materials). Cases of LME are well documented in literature

for steel soldering using high-temperature copper alloys [5, 6, 7], but articles describing LME

in thermite welding can’t be found.

It must also be pointed out that the martensite microstructure, that is present in the

surface layer of steel, is subjected also to diffusion of hydrogen. Literature indicates that in

the case of cathodic protection there are cases where atomic hydrogen can be absorbed in the

martensite layer, causing so called hydrogen embrittlement [8].

4.3 Measurements of micro-hardness

Micro-hardness measurements just below the weld edge showed that the values in the

martensite can be as high as 367 HV (Fig. 5 left-side). Such result was obtained in the case of

over-used welding mould and at a temperature of steel pipe approximately 15 °C.

When we use the new welding mould and the base material is only slightly preheated

(dried) at a temperature of approximately 40 °C, the values of the hardness of martensite

immediately decrease to values from 210 to 250 HV. If the preheating temperature is

increased to 60 °C, the hardness value just below the weld edge is safely decreased (below

200 HV). Preheating temperatures at 80 °C did not lead to lower results in micro-hardness

measurements.

Temp. (preheat): 15 °C

Hardness: 367 HV

40 °C

217 HV

60 °C

187 HV

Figure 5: Measurements of micro-hardness at weld edge for various preheating

temperatures

Fig. 6 shows that by using of new mould and at minimum preheating, we can achieve

reduction in hardness just below the weld edge. Reduced local hardness is result of absence of

hard martensite microstructures. Also microcracking cannot be found in these cases.

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Figure 6: Micro-hardness results in weld cross-section

5 REDUCTION OF MATERIAL STRENGTH DUE TO MICROCRACKS

Calculation of reduction of static strength of steel pipe due to the presence of filled

crack can be done using equations derived by Panasyuk et al. [9]. Relation between static

strength of material with empty crack pc and material with filled crack pfc for a size of crack

shown on Fig. 7 is:

��

��

��α

�� αβ� η (2)

where the coefficients α and β are calculated using Eq. (3) below.

α ��

and β �

� (0 < α ≤ 1; 1 < β < ∞ ) (3)

Figure 7: Schematic representation of tension in cracked plate [9]

100

150

200

250

300

350

400

Weld edge HAZ Base mat.

Mic

ro-h

ard

ness

[H

V]

Old mould, temp.

15°C

New mould, prehea t.

temp. 40 °C

New mould, prehea t.

temp. 60 °C

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The coefficient η varies from 0 to 1. The case η = 0 corresponds to the strength of the

material with completely “healed” crack (filled with material of equal strength) and η = 1

corresponds to the case where the crack is not “healed”. In our case for size of crack presented

in Fig. 4b, where we use in calculations Young modulus for steel (E) and copper (Efc), the

coefficient η is 0,01. This means that just a little reduction of static strength can be expected.

In this research crack propagation due to fatigue was not investigated, but some

previous research articles can be found in literature. In article [10] mechanical properties and

in-crack distribution of filled crack were investigated. Results of this research showed in Fig.

8, assume that cracks in steel filled with other metal (Cu or Ni) lead to retardation of crack

propagation.

Figure 8: Crack length versus cycle behaviour of the specimens filled with nickel (EN5)

and copper (EC3) at 0,95 Kmax crack prop-opening load [10]

6 CONCLUSIONS

Because of presence of liquid-solid metal contact in welding area larger crystal grains,

martensite microstructure and consequently, the microcracks appear. Those microcracks

observed in our research work are filled with liquid copper.

Formation of hard and brittle martensite microstructure just below the surface can be

observed, because of rapid cooling rate of weld, which may be initials for the propagation of

cracks. To reduce this unfavourable microstructure, it is necessary to reduce the rate of

cooling, which can be achieved by preheating the steel. By preheating to temperature at least

40 °C, which is especially important at low surroundings temperatures, reduction of

martensite microstructure can be achieved, hardness at weld edge is lowered and initiation of

microcracks is suppressed. This preheating also reduce moisture, which may appear on the

surface of pipe and causes some other welding defects.

In conclusion, some literature review was made to check how this microcracks

influence the static and fatigue strength of material. Calculation made for static strength

showed that only minor reduction of strength can be expected. In the case of dynamic load,

the crack propagation of filled crack is slower that in the case of empty crack. However, filled

crack can also lead to material collapse. Some further experimental investigation in this field

still need to be done.

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609-Analysis of Cracks Resulting From Thermite Welding of Cathodic Protection