Failure of austenitic stainless steel components used in nitrogen oxide plant

✍ Scribed by V.M.J. Sharma; A.K. Jha; P. Ramesh Narayanan; S. Arumugham; T.S. Lakshmanan

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 639 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1350-6307
• DOI: 10.1016/s1350-6307(97)00011-3

✦ Synopsis

Abstraet--Austenitic stainless steel components of a nitrogen oxide plant have been found to leak in service. The failed components, namely pipe-to-pipe joints and pipe-to-flange joints, have been studied through standard metallographic techniques to analyse the cause of the failure. In case study I, involving the failure of pipe-to-flange joints, cracking was observed in the pipe wall next to the pipe-to-flange weld. In case study 11, involving the failure of a sight port flange, cracking was observed in the flange adjacent to the pipe-to-flange weld. In both cases, cracking was by an intergranular mechanism, and carbon contents were much higher than permitted for "L" grades of austenitic stainless steel.