WELD BETWEEN CF8A STAINLESS STEEL CASTING

AND Ni-Cr-Mo-V FORGED STEEL, WITH Ni-Cr-Fe

ALLOY BUTTERING. PRACTICAL CASE
III International Congress & 21st Technical Sessions on Welding and Joining Technologies

V. Román, P. Verón, A. Cabeza, A. Peña.

EQUIPOS NUCLEARES, S.A.

SUMMARY

The aim of the article is to present ENSA’s experience in welding a low alloy steel,
forged ASTM SA-508 (Ni-Cr-Mo-V steel) in which a buttering is performed (alloy Ni-
Cr-Fe, 52M type) to a stainless steel casting, type CF8A. The process involves all
the engineering aspects that should be taken into account to satisfactorily perform
the assembly, such as welding procedure selection, a buttering performed on the
casting side and tooling and UT inspection design, encountered problems and their
solutions to achieve on-time and high quality delivery.

Key words: TIG Narrow Gap, Marangoni, stainless Steel casting, Inconel®,
Ultrasound inspection.
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1. INTRODUCTION. CASE DESCRIPTION

The studied weld involves the joint between the outlet nozzle of a steam generator
and the pump casing. The nozzle is manufactured in low alloy steel, ASTM SA-508
(Ni-Cr-Mo-V forged steel) on which a nickel based alloy buttering is performed (Ni-
Cr-Fe, 52M type) to exert a metallurgical transition function between weld and base
material. The pump casing is manufactured in stainless steel but, given the
complex geometry, it is required to be cast (SA-351 Gr.CF8A). Since, as
consequence of the fabrication process, there is a high probability to obtain
segregation and impurities on the surface of the welding edges, it is necessary to
perform a stainless steel buttering on the cast piece which will allow a satisfactory
weld to the steam generator. In Figure 1 there is an explicative graph of the joint.

The weld is performed by means of arc welding process, which is tungsten arc
welding (TIG) in narrow gap configuration. The bevel selection was based on the
need to maintain the overall distortion as low as reasonably possible. It also serves
to confine residual stresses from welding to the minimum volume. Moreover,
among other advantages, it reduces execution rates and filler material
consumption.

The performance of the present joint is a technological challenge mainly due to the
following determinants:

 Marangoni effect apparition.

 Ultrasonic inspection.
 Welding procedure and distortion control.
  Despite the mentioned problems, weld and inspection of the joint
between pump casing and steam generator has satisfactorily
performed, allowing the on-time delivery of the components.

2. DESCRIPTION AND MATERIALS

Materials used for the fabrication of the component are ASME classified materials:

 Low alloy steel forging, ASTM SA-508 (Ni-Cr-Mo-V steel). It is

III International Congress & 21st Technical Sessions on Welding and Joining Technologies

quenched and tempered steel commonly used for pressure vessels.

Each steam generator channel head can reach a final weight of 405
Tons (channel head is the designation for the primary side
subassembly of a steam generator, part in which the pump casings
have to be welded).
 Stainless steel casting CF8A is the base material for the pump casing
manufacture. The complex geometry that has to be reproduced makes
costly and expensive to manufacture it by any other process. As all of
the casting products, its level of impurities is rather high, especially on
the surface and the risk of porosity or inclusion defects is elevated. It
is therefore recommended to perform a buttering on the side on which
it will be subsequently welded so as to avoid defects on the narrow gap
joint. The weight of a pump casing is of 17 Tn.
 Nickel alloy filler material (alloy 52M). Alloy 52M (classified as
ERNiCrFe-7A) has been chosen both for the buttering on the forging
and the butt weld. This alloy is widely used for dissimilar welds on the
nuclear industry because it prevents the apparition of hot cracking and
DDC (Ductility Dip Cracking) problems during welding and operation.
 Stainless steel filler material low sulphur content to perform the
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buttering on the stainless steel casting previously mentioned. The

customer required the use of an especial low sulphur filler material, to
avoid hot cracking during butt weld, regardless the negative effect this
chemical composition may have.
 The components before and after welding are shown in Figure 2.

3. STAINLESS STEEL BUTTERING. MARANGONI CONVECTION.

Due to the properties of cast steel and the high level of impurities that is obtained
on its surface, it is required to perform a stainless steel buttering, but considering a
sulphur content restriction imposed by the designer of the steam generator. Thus,
the content in sulphur should be kept below 0.002 wt%, whilst the sulphur content
of base material was 0.009wt% (see Table 1).

During the fabrication of the UT calibration block, defects were found by penetrant
testing on bevels once they had been machined. These indications were located
along the whole buttering surface and had the appearance of slender lack of fusion
defects. Bevels were repaired and machined. The defects were found again in new
locations.

In order to identify the possibility that these indications were caused by Marangoni
forces, a test coupon was performed using the same welding filler material and
parameters as the UT block. A macrographic and micrographic examination was
performed on a transverse section. Flaws could be detected by naked eye in the
macrography. Under the magnifying glass, they appeared to be 4mm-long lack of
fusion defects among welding layers (see Figure 3, Figure 4 and Figure 5).
 The Marangoni convection forces are thermocapillary forces which have an effect on
weldability due to the surface-active elements concentration in both sides of the
weld. One of these elements is sulphur, which may cause changes on surface
tension of the weld pool. Some authors pointed out that when the tense active
elements exceed a critical concentration value (around 50 ppm) the surface tension
coefficient changes from positive to negative. The Marangoni flow would occur from
a region of low surface tension to a region of high surface tension.

Standard chemical compositions for the materials previously cited are shown in
table 1.
III International Congress & 21st Technical Sessions on Welding and Joining Technologies

%wt. %wt.
Filler Cast
Element metal piece
C 0.01 0.05
Si 0.34 1.29
Mn 1.52 0.7
P 0.014 0.013
S 0.002 0.009
Ni 10.22 8.00
Cr 19.66 20.64
Mo 0.13 0.4
Co 0.02 0.01
Cu 0.08 --
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V 0.06 --
Ti 0.01 --
Ni 0.049 0.09
Fe
WRC92 9.6 15.7
Table 1.Chemical composition of both stainless steels: pump casing casting and
buttering filler metal.

An inadequate control during welding operation to obtain the buttering may had led
to these undesirable effects. However, as this incident was detected before welding
on the component. This defect could be avoided by changing oscillation and current
intensity parameters during the buttering operation on the piece. Welding process
used for the butter layer was oscillating TIG hot wire.

4. BUTT WELD

4.1 Welding

Both pieces to be joined are of large dimensions and weights, (the lightest one
weights 17 tm), so there are limitations regarding their positioning and movement.
This is aggravated by the fact that the nozzles are not axisymmetric, which makes
difficult a precise alignment. As a consequence, conditions above mentioned oblige
to perform the weld in 5G position, maintaining the pieces to be welded static and
rotating the welding equipment, with the difficulties that this provides. Moreover, it
 is required the construction of specific tooling for the pieces positioning, levelling
and fixing of the pump casing to the steam generator nozzle.

These tooling allowed a comfortable operation and positioning as well as an

adequate movement of the welding head. During welding several dimensional
controls were performed to register the distortion experienced by the pieces and
avoid the narrow gap welding torch entrapment. Given that the overall thickness
welded was of 145 mm and the groove had a final gap of 20mm, due to the
viscosity of the weld pool, the joint was performed by means of a pulsed current
and using an oscillating narrow groove torch, as shown on Figure 7. It was also
III International Congress & 21st Technical Sessions on Welding and Joining Technologies

needed to have a root protection from the inner side of the casing as it was not
machined after welding.

Welding equipment especially developed for circumferential welds in 5G is used.

The narrow gap technique allows welding in a very narrow angle preparation.
Expending a low quantity of filler material and reducing to the minimum the
welding distortion.

4.3 Inspection

Due to the crystalline structure and grain size of the stainless steel cast product
there is an added difficulty to develop the suitable inspection technique that could
allow the detection of potential defects and the minimum detectable indication size
possible. Moreover, grain growth in butterings and the weld joint is epitaxial, which
makes difficult its ultrasonic inspection. In order to properly examine the welded
joint, according to ASME Code section V, article 5, it should be inspected from both
sides (pump casing and channel head), as well as from the inner and the outer
side, using angular and straight beam probes.
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As mentioned before, a representative mock-up was manufactured a representative

mock-up from which the calibration block was extracted. This allowed having the
configuration as representative as possible. Although these precautions cannot
guarantee the absence of noise that is registered when performing the ultrasonic
inspection, the welds could be successfully examined and contrasted using
radiographic examination where it was possible.

5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION.

Discussion and conclusion

 The buttering operation using different Sulfur content materials

highlights the additional inconvenience of the potential apparition of
the Marangoni effect caused by the different tens-active elements on
stainless steel that form the pump casing and the filler material used
to perform the buttering.
 It is required to have an adequate control on welding parameters to
avoid the undesirable effect.
 For the joint of those big components, special toolings and devices
should be developed.
 Given the base materials properties, which make them not suitable for
ultrasonic inspection, calibration blocks and inspections routines and
techniques should be developed in order to guarantee compliance with
the fabrication code and absence of significant indications.
 It is also advisable to perform preventive NDT inspection during
welding and all the previous joining sequences.
 REFERENCES

[1]. RUUD, Clayton O., et al. Cast Stainless Steel Ferrite and Grain
Structure. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA
(US), 2012.
[2]. LU, Shanping, et al. Weld Penetration and Marangoni Convection with
Oxide Fluxes in GTA Welding. Materials Transactions, 2002, vol. 43, no
11, p. 2926-2931.
III International Congress & 21st Technical Sessions on Welding and Joining Technologies

[3]. SGOBBA, Stefano; DANIELLOU, T. Effects of thermocapillary forces

during welding of 316L-type wrought, cast and powder metallurgy
austenitic stainless steels. Journal of materials processing technology,
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[4]. LU, Shanping; FUJII, Hidetoshi; NOGI, Kiyoshi. Sensitivity of
Marangoni convection and weld shape variations to welding
parameters in O 2–Ar shielded GTA welding. Scripta Materialia, 2004,
vol. 51, no 3, p. 271-277.
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