Hydrogen Diffusion Concentration Behaviors for Square Groove Weld Joint

Abstract

Hydrogen induced cracking occurs at the welded position of the structure due to concentration of hydrogen during cooling process of welding. A square groove weld joint is one of typical one in engineering field. Hydrogen embrittlement cracking is sometimes caused during cooling process of a weld joint. For such case, hydrogen diffusion and concentration behaviour is a significant factor. One of authors has been proposed α multiplication method which magnifies the hydrogen driving term in the diffusion equation to find out detailed behaviours of hydrogen concentration around a local stress field. In this paper, to clarify hydrogen diffusion behaviour in the square groove weld joint, a coupled analysis of heat transfer – thermal stress – hydrogen diffusion combining with α multiplication method was conducted. From these results, it was found out that for the case of a square groove weld joint, since thermal stress was not highly localized for the case of using usual value of thermal expansion coefficient of steel, hydrogen concentration behaviour is not typical. However, if thermal stress is highly localized, hydrogen was found to be localized in the side of HAZ (heat affected zone) at the interface of WM (weld metal) and HAZ and is much more typical near the outer surface side of weld joint. Hydrogen diffusion and concentration behaviours were also found to be dominated not only by local thermal stress gradient, ∇σ but also by diffusion coefficient gradient, ∇D caused by temperature difference during cooling process. In this paper, effects of these factors on hydrogen concentration were investigated based on a coupled analysis of heat transfer – thermal stress – hydrogen diffusion combining with α multiplication method.