Proceedings of the Twenty-first (2011) International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference

Maui, Hawaii, USA, June 19-24, 2011

Copyright 2011 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1-880653-96-8 (Set); ISSN 1098-6189 (Set); www.isope.org

Forgings for Low Temperature Applications Influences of the Alloying Concept

and Advanced Forging Procedures on Impact Strength and Fracture Toughness
M. T. Welsch 1; D. Bruch 1; E. stby 2
1
Bruck Forgings, Saarbruecken, Germany
2
SINTEF Materials and Chemistry, Trondheim, Norway

ABSTRACT
Forgings are widely used in offshore applications such as piping
components (e. g. flanges or T-pieces) or structural parts in oil and gas
exploration. With the expansion of the oil and gas recovering area in
the arctic region, resistance to brittle fracture at low temperatures is of
great importance for all components, regardless of their manufacturing
process. Since forgings generally have larger wall thicknesses than e.g.
tubes, it is more difficult to realize the required properties over the
entire cross-section.
In this article, the investigation of two fine-grained structural steels of
different grades (ASTM A694 F65 and F70) in the form of two
different forging geometries is presented. The work has been carried
out under the Arctic Materials Project. Both, the influence of chemical
composition and the impact of forging process on the mechanical
properties have been evaluated. The main focus of the investigation
was placed on the impact strength and fracture toughness. Transition
curves were recorded to characterize low-temperature toughness
behavior of the different material grades. Many CTOD measurements
at 60 C with different notch depths were carried out to gain a statistic.
The results of these experiments are interpreted by means of optical
microscopy.
KEY WORDS: Forging; Seamless Ring Rolling; Fracture Toughness;
Impact Strength; Alloying Concept; Forging Procedure.
INTRODUCTION
Fine-grained structural steels were developed to combine good strength
and toughness values together with a good weldability (Kohtz, 1979).
Through years of process engineering and optimization as well as
improvements of the alloy compositions, it was achieved to design
steels for heavy-duty construction with large component safety. Novel
fine-grained structural steels were produced by innovative rolling,
forging and heat treatment strategies and the use of micro-alloying
elements (Heller and Mitze, 1981; Jahazi and Eghbali, 2001;
Khodabandeh, Jahazi, Yue and Bocher, 2005).
From the metallurgical point of view, two opposing processes must be
considered to combine the best properties. To ensure weldability, cold
formability and toughness at low temperatures a reduction of carbon
and an increased purity (low P, S) has to be realized together with a
fine grain. These restrictions result in lower strength, which has to be
compensated by a combination of hardening measures on the
requirements. By these hardening effects, neither the weldability, nor
the cold formability and low temperature toughness is allowed to drop
out. Because unlike the other mechanisms, grain refinement hardening
is advantageous not only to strength but also toughness-enhancing, in
construction materials generally a very finely grained structure is
aimed. In addition the mechanisms of work hardening, solid solution
hardening, precipitation hardening and particle hardening contribute to
the strength but have to be well adjusted not to lead to drawbacks in
toughness.
Whereas the typical application temperatures for common fine grained
structural steels is down to 40 C in this work the testing of two fine
grained grades was mainly carried out at 60 C to represent the
conditions in arctic region. A standard fine grained steel chemistry
(F65) is compared to a toughness optimized chemical composition
(F70) to show the influence of the alloying to the low temperature
properties. Different forging procedures (ring rolling and open die
forging) are represented by two types of products: seamless rolled rings
and shafts.
The aim was to demonstrate the base metal performance of the forged
state-of-the-art materials and was included in the screening testing of
the Arctic Material Project.
TEST PIECES
The dimensions of the seamless ring-rolled rings were an outer
diameter of 1300 mm, an inner diameter of 1000 mm and a height of
300 mm. The forged shafts had a length of 600 mm and a diameter of
150 mm. The relevant heat treatment thickness T of both types of parts
(wall thickness for the ring, diameter for the shaft) is equal to 150 mm.
Based on this thickness, T, the testing locations were chosen near
surface (T/0), quarter thickness (T/4) and half thickness (T/2).

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