Cracking of underground welded steel pipes caused by HAZ sensitization

An article on case study, published in « Case Studies in Engineering Failure Analysis« , on january 2013.

Low alloy steel welded pipes buried in the ground were sent for failure analysis investigation. Failure of steel pipes was not caused by tensile ductile overload but resulted from low ductility fracture in the area of the weld, which also contains multiple intergranular secondary cracks. The failure is most probably attributed to intergranular cracking initiating from the outer surface in the weld heat affected zone and propagated through the wall thickness.

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