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Stress Corrosion Cracking of a 304 Stainless Steel Elbow

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Abstract

This research was focused on the failure analysis of a cracked SS304 stainless steel elbow from a chemical plant. The service life of the elbow was 2 years and 8 months. The elbow was welded with two straight pipes at two ends. Cracks were located mainly at positions close to the weld joint and the arc where very strong tensile residual stress existed. Corrosion pits were distributed on the inner surface of the elbow. Cracks were initiated from the corrosion pit bottoms. Branching was observed from the cracks. Cl and S elements were detected in corrosion products from the corrosion pits and the cracks by EDS. SEM results reviewed the intergranular and transgranular brittle nature of the fracture. It is concluded that stress corrosion cracking was the main reason for the cracking of the elbow.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation, China (Grant No. ZR2014YL003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11404192 and 11605106), the Key Research and Development Project of Shandong Province, China (Grant No. 2017GSF220004), the Shandong Province Special Grant for High-Level Overseas Talents and the research fund of Shandong Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. 2017QN001, 2019GHPY11 and KJHZ201805), and also Foundation of Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Technology of Sophisticated Analytical Instruments (Grant No. 201806).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shandong Engineering Technology Center for Materials Failure Analysis and Safety Assessment, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Technology of Sophisticated Analytical Instruments, Shandong Analysis and Test Center, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, 250014, People’s Republic of China

    Weimin Guo, Ning Ding, Long Liu, Na Xu, Nan Li, Feng Zhang & Lizong Chen

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  1. Weimin Guo
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  2. Ning Ding
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  3. Long Liu
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  5. Nan Li
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  6. Feng Zhang
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  7. Lizong Chen
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Correspondence to Weimin Guo.

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Guo, W., Ding, N., Liu, L. et al. Stress Corrosion Cracking of a 304 Stainless Steel Elbow. J Fail. Anal. and Preven. 20, 483–493 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-020-00852-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11668-020-00852-7

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