Madan, M and Raghavendra, K and Sujata, M and Bhaumik, SK (2011) Failure analysis of welded stainless steel heat exchanger tube. Project Report. National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore, India, Bangalore, India.Full text not available from this repository.
A cracked heat exchanger tube was sent to this laboratory for analyzing the cause of failure. Examination revealed that the tube had developed cracks at several locations in the heat affected zone at the tube-to-tube weld. Investigation showed that the failure of the tube was by chloride stress corrosion cracking. It is suspected that the source of ‘Cl’ was the cooling water. In addition, it was discovered that the tubes were fabricated from a 200 series stainless steel (SS) instead of the recommended 304 grade SS. The corrosion resistance of 200-series SS is inferior to 304 grade SS and are not suitable for corrosion resistant application of the present kind. Therefore, in addition to probable high ‘Cl’ contents in the cooling water, the use of wrong material for the fabrication of heat exchanger is believed to have accentuated the vulnerability for chloride stress corrosion cracking. A detailed analysis of the failure is presented in this report.
|Item Type:||Proj.Doc/Technical Report (Project Report)|
|Uncontrolled Keywords:||Heat exchanger tube;HAZ;Chloride cracking;Improper fabrication|
|Subjects:||CHEMISTRY AND MATERIALS > Chemistry and Materials (General)|
|Division/Department:||Materials Science Division, Materials Science Division, Materials Science Division, Materials Science Division|
|Depositing User:||Ms. Alphones Mary|
|Date Deposited:||06 Jul 2011 11:16|
|Last Modified:||06 Jul 2011 11:16|
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