12636(p.602-607) 14.7.

24 15:15 ページ 602

｢材料｣ (Journal of the Society of Materials Science, Japan), Vol. 63, No. 8, pp. 602-607, Aug. 2014
Original Paper

Effect of Miss-alignment on Residual Stress in Carbon Steel Socket Welded Joint

by
＊ ＊＊
Makoto HAYASHI and John H. ROOT

Residual stress remarkably affects the fatigue strength of welded socket joint. In carbon and austenitic stainless
steel the fatigue strength of socket welded joint is about half of base metal. This is caused by the high tensile residual
stress at the root of socked weld. In this study the variation of residual stress distribution near the weld start and end
points, effects of miss-alignment on the residual stress distribution and the principal strain and stress were examined
using the neutron diffraction method. As a result, the effects of miss-alignment are negligibly small and the residual
stress at the weld root is almost the same with that of normally welded joint. The deviations of principal axes from the
specimen directions are not so much large and the principal stresses almost agree with those of specimen axes.
Key words : Residual stress, Neutron diffraction, Socket weld, Carbon steel

1 Introduction stress distributions in the socket welded specimens in

The X-ray diffraction technique widely used to accu-
rately measure residual stress in various kinds of materi-
als has been standardized by the Committee on X-ray
Study for Deformation and Fracture of Solid of The
1)
Society of Materials Science, Japan. Since the penetra-
tion depth of X-ray is only about μm from the surface,
residual stresses inside the structure can not be mea-
sured. On the other hand, the penetration depth of neu-
tron is sufficiently deep and the neutron diffraction tech-
nique is the only method available to non-destructively
determine residual stresses inside weldments.2), 3) The
neutron diffraction technique has also been applied to the
stress distribution measurement at the fatigue crack tip
of specimens under loaded and unloaded conditions.4)
Residual strains were measured in almost all of the
previous studies on neutron diffraction. Residual stress
distributions have to be measured to evaluate the fatigue
strength of structural components. Elastic constants are
needed to convert residual strains to residual stresses.
Since elastic constants depend on diffraction planes, we
have studied this dependency for ferritic steel and Ze-
2.5%Nb alloy.5), 6) Based on our research and previous
studies, (211) lattice plane was recognized as the most
appropriate plane for measuring residual stresses. The
authors also examined the spatial distribution of residual
stresses in a socket weld in which a short sleeve is
aligned and welded to two tubes.7) The residual stress at
the root of the weld metal in the socket welded joints was
about 130MPa. This is about 65% of the estimated value
from the fatigue test results of as-welded and stress-
relieved socket joints.
In the previous experiment, we measured the residual
which the axes of socket and pipe was correctly aligned
each other.7) In this study, the effect of misalignment
between the socket and the pipe on the maximum axial
residual stress was examined. Furthermore, the residual
strain distributions near the weld start and end positions,
and the principal strains and stresses were also examined.
2 Experimental Procedures
2. 1 Specimen
Shape and dimensions of socket welded specimen is
shown in Fig. 1. Pipes with outside diameter of 27.2mm
and inside diameter of 19.4mm are inserted into socket
with outside diameter of 39.0mm and inside diameter of
27.7mm and welded each other. Material of pipe is car-
bon steel JIS STPT410 and that of socket is JIS S25C.
Chemical compositions and mechanical properties of
both materials are shown in Table 1. Weld throat depths
are 4.7mm and 5.7mm to examine the effect of throat
depth on the residual stress.
As mentioned later, stress free lattice spacing has to be
measured for the residual stress measurement using
neutron diffraction. Sampling positions of reference
materials for stress free lattice spacing is shown in Fig. 2.
The stress free samples are cut from base metal, weld
Fig. 1 Shape and dimensions of socket welded specimen.

† Received June 5, 2013 © 2014 The Society of Materials Science, Japan

＊ Member : Planning Division, Ibaraki Pref. Government, Tokai-mura, Naka-gun, Ibaraki, 319-1106 Japan
＊＊ NRC, Ontario, Canada
12636(p.602-607) 14.7.24 15:15 ページ 603

† Effect of Miss-alignment on Residual Stress in Carbon Steel Socket Welded Joint † 603

Table 1 Chemical compositions and mechanical properties. A photograph of a socket welded pipe mounted on the
XZω -translator in an orientation suitable for measuring
the radial strain components is shown in Fig. 4. The socket
welded joint specimen is hold in specially designed jig and it
is mounted on the translator. A rotary drive unit permits
the automatic selection of circumferential positions for
examination, while the linear translators permit the
automatic selection of various depths and axial locations
in the weldment. The specimen can be moved under
computer control at a precision of ± 0.005mm to scan the
sampling volume throughout a two-dimensional slice
through the wall of the weldment. Thus, a spatial map of
strain is constructed.
Residual stress measured positions in the vertical
cross section is shown in Fig. 5 The residual stress dis-
tribution through-throat thickness is measured from ①
to ⑤. Position ④ is weld root. The residual stress distri-
bution along the pipe surface is measured from ⑤ to ⑧.
Position ⑧ is weld toe.
Fig. 2 Sampling positions of reference materials for
2. 3 Neutron Diffraction Measurements
stress free lattice spacing.
Neutron diffraction is a method for measuring the
metal and heat affected zone. The size is about 5mm cubic. spacing, d, between the atomic planes of a crystal lattice.
These samples are heat treated at 625℃ for 2 hours to A neutron beam of a known wavelength λ is diffracted
relieve the residual stress due to the welding.
2. 2 Neutron Diffraction Apparatus
An optical system near the diffractometer is shown in
Fig. 3. The L3 neutron diffractometer at Chalk River
Laboratories of National Research Council, Canada was
configured to produce a neutron beam with a wavelength of
0.16532 nm by the 115 diffraction of a squeezed single
crystal germanium monochromator. Strains were deter-
mined from shifts in the angular position of the 112 dif-
fraction peak, which occurred at a diffraction angle of
about 89.7deg. For the measurement of all strains, the
incident and diffracted beam were shaped, by slits in cad-
mium masks, to a width of 1mm and a height of 3mm.
Since the angle between the incident and diffracted beams
was nearly 90degree, the intersection of the beams
defined a sampling volume that was nearly a rectangular
prism.
Fig. 4 Appearance of residual stress measurement in
socket welded joint.

Fig. 3 Optical system near diffractometer. Fig. 5 Residual stress measurement locations.
12636(p.602-607) 14.7.24 15:15 ページ 604

604 ＊ M. Hayashi, John H. Root ＊

from its incident direction by a scattering angle 2θ 3 Experimental Results and Discussion
according to Bragg’s law, 3. 1 Residual strain near the weld start and
(1) end points
Since the heat sequence at the weld start and end
By scanning a detector through a range of scattering
points is complicated, the residual strain distribution there
angles, a profile of neutron counts versus 2θ is obtained,
seems to show extraordinary pattern.2) Thus the hoop
as shown in Fig. 6. A Gaussian function is fitted to the
directional residual strain distributions near the weld start
raw data to obtain the mean scattering angle, also known as
and end points were measured. The result obtained at the
the lattice spacing. The peak was collected in about 50
weld root (Position 4) in the socket welded joint with the
minutes. FWHM is obtained as 0.403degree. This means
shallow throat is shown in Fig. 7. The measured region
that typical precision of the mean scattering angle is
covers ± 6mm from center of the start and end points. In
± 0.003deg. The value of d in most engineering materials
the figure the maximum, the mean and the minimum
ranges from 0.1nm to 0.3nm. They are determined by
hoop strain measured every 90 degrees in the circumfer-
Eq.(1) to a precision of about ± 1 × 10−5nm.
Elastic strain, ε, is determined by comparing the mea- ential direction are indicated for reference. The range of

sured value of d to the value measured in a suitable residual strains at the weld start and end points exceeds

stress-free reference d0 through the relation, that for circumferential values. However, any character-
istic strain distributions can not be found.
(2)
The hoop directional residual strain distributions near
Actually, d0 are measured in small samples, as shown in
the weld start and end points in the deep throat socket
Fig. 2. d0 for three positions almost agree with each other
joint is shown in Fig. 8. In this case only the residual
and 0.11707 ± 0.00001nm. This agreement means that d0
strain at center of end point slightly exceeds the maxi-
is not affected by the slight difference in chemical com-
mum value for circumferential values.
position and the metallurgical structure.
The hoop directional residual strain distributions
With the three strain measurements at each location,
obtained at just beneath the weld root (Position 5) in the
residual stresses can be calculated through a generalized
Hook’s law,

(3)

where E is Young’s modulus, ν is Poisson’s ratio and the

radial, axial and hoop components of stress, σR, σA and
σH, respectively, are obtained by cyclic permutation of
the indices in Eq.(3).
The elastic constants E and ν, needed to convert the
measured strain to the stress, depend on the hkl diffrac-
tion plane. Hayashi et al. revealed that the appropriate
elastic constants were E = 243 ± 5GPa and ν = 0.28 ± 0.01
for strain determined from shifts in the 112 diffraction
Fig. 7 Residual strain distributions near the weld start
peak for ferritic steel weldments.5) and end points at position 4.

Fig. 8 Residual strain distributions near the weld start

Fig. 6 Typical neutron diffraction profile. and end points at position 4.
12636(p.602-607) 14.7.24 15:15 ページ 605
† Effect of Miss-alignment on Residual Stress in Carbon Steel Socket Welded Joint †
socket welded joint with the shallow throat is shown in
Fig. 9 for reference. The residual strain exceeds at only
one point at 4mm from the center of end point. The
absolute value of residual strain is a little bit larger at
Point 5 than that at Point 4.
The axial and radial directional residual strain distrib-
utions could not be measured. However, since the resid-
ual stress distributions in the weld metal exhibit static-
stress-like,7) the maximum axial residual stress seems to
be larger value than the previously measured.
3. 2 Residual stress in misaligned socket
welded joint
In the previous study the socket welded joints were
precisely manufactured based on the design drawing.7)
This means that the axes of pipes are arranged to match
their centers with that of socket. In the actual nuclear
and thermal power plants, it is very difficult to match
their centers because of very narrow and complicated
working conditions. In order to fit the actual conditions
the socket welded joint was prepared without any jig to
maintain the alignment. On the contrary, the pipe was set
to take the maximum angle against the socket, as shown
in Fig. 10. Because the pipes are not parallel to the sock-
et, there is a circumferential variation of the clearance
distance between the outer diameter of each pipe, 27.2
mm, and the inner diameter of the socket, 27.7mm.
The circumferential position in this specimen is
described as an angle, ω, from the start point of the weld.
The weld was made in two passes, beginning at the same
start point, ω = 0 degree, but traveling in opposite directions
(denoted by the sign of ω) around the perimeter of the
pipe to reach the end point at ω = 180degree. The posi-
tion of maximum clearance is at ω = 45degree, while the
position of minimum clearance is at ω = −135degree.
Measurements were made to characterize the variation
of lattice strain with ω, in steps of 22.5degree from ω = 0
degree. At each value of ω, the strain was measured near
Fig. 9 Residual strain distributions near the weld start
and end points at position 5.
605
Fig. 10 Specimen orientations for misaligned axial centers.
the root of the fusion zone, as shown in Fig. 10. In the figure,
filled circles indicate circumferential positions of sam-
pling volume.
The measurement uncertainties of strains in the axial,
hoop and radial directions are ± 0.5 × 10−4, ± 1.0 × 10−4 and
± 0.6 × 10−4 respectively. These uncertainties are related
to the goodness-of-fit of the model function to the raw
neutron data, counts versus scattering angle. The typical
uncertainties in the calculates stresses are ± 17MPa,
± 22MPa and ± 18MPa for the axial, hoop and radial
directions, respectively.
The circumferential variation of axial strain is shown in
Fig. 11 for example. The residual stress distributions in
the axial, hoop and radial directions are shown in Fig. 12.
As an overall, the strains and stresses are a little bit
small, compared with the previous socket welded joint.
There are significant variations of strain over a short
range in ω. As evidence that these variations are not sim-
ply statistical fluctuations, measurements of the axial
strain were repeated at some circumferential locations
and are presented in Fig. 11. The agreement between the
two sets of measurements is well within the uncertainty
of the measurements. Since this uncertainty is much less
than the amplitude of the strain variations, the short-
range fluctuation of the strain variations must be a true
feature of the socket welded joint.
The distribution of the stresses exhibits a complicated
structure, and few features can be related definitely to
key locations such as the start and end points or the posi-
tions of the minimum and maximum clearance. The
effects at these key locations produce residual stress pat-
terns that interfere with each other, since the extreme of
clearance are offset by 4 degree from the extreme of the
weld path. As in the previous investigation of a socket
weld,6) the hoop stresses at the root of the weld exhibit
12636(p.602-607) 14.7.24 15:15 ページ 606
606
Fig. 11 Axial residual strain distribution in the circumferential
direction in misaligned socket welded joint.
Fig. 12 Circumferential variations of axial, hoop and
radial stresses at the root of the fusion zone.
minimum at locations mid-way between the start and end
points, near ω = 90degree and ω = −90degree. The
largest tensile stress, 115MPa, is found in the axial
direction and occurs at ω = −135degree, the position of
the minimum clearance between the socket and the
pipe. At the start point of the weld, the axial stress
exhibits a substantial change of sign. There seem to be
no other meaningful correlations to make between phys-
ical locations and stress values.
The main surprise in these results is that the residual
stresses are low in magnitude at all circumferential posi-
tions. This observation seems to be inconsistent with the
formation of fatigue cracks in the actual nuclear power
plants. The absence of large axial stresses may be
explained in two possible ways. First, it may be that the
root of the weld is not the location of maximum axial
stress. To test this explanation, a new series of measure-
ments should be made elsewhere in the fusion zone of
the weldment. Second, it may be that the axial, hoop and
radial directions are not principal axes of the stress
field, and therefore the measurements do not show the
highest magnitudes of strain. To test this explanation,
measurements in directions other than axial, hoop and
radial have been made, to search for the principal axes.
＊ M. Hayashi, John H. Root ＊
3. 3 Determination of principal axes of stress
To determine the principal axes and the values of the
principal stresses, measurements of lattice strain must be
made in more than six directions in the specimen. A direc-
tion in the specimen is described by χ, the angle of tilt from
the radial direction and η, the azimuthal angle from the axial
direction, as shown in Fig. 13. The six independent elements
of a strain tensor, ε ij, can be determined by a least-squares fit
of the strains measured in each direction, ε (χ, η), the rela-
tion is,
(4)
In Eq.(4), the indices i and j assume values for three
specimen axes : 1 = axial, 2 = hoop and 3 = radial. Note
that ε ij = ε ji, since the tensor is symmetric. The functions
r1 are direction cosines :r1 = sinχcosη, r2 = sinχsinη
and r3 = cosχ.
The principal values of the strain tensor are the eigen-
values, εx, εy and εz, and are determined by solving the
cubic equation :
(5)
The corresponding eigenvectors are the principal axes of
strain, denoted as x∗, y∗ and z∗. The principal stresses
may be calculated through an algebraic relation that is
analogous to Eq.(3).
The same specimen as described in Section 3.2 provid-
ed the data needed to determine the principal axes of
strain in the socket weld. At the circumferential position
ω = 0 degree, measurements of strain were made in the
axial, radial and hoop directions, and in 9 other direc-
tions, which were specified by the angles (χ, η). At least
seven measurements of strain, ε (χ, η), required to
determine a least-squares solution for the elements of the
strain tensor through Eq.(4). To obtain an accurate solu-
tion, the values of (χ, η) should be chosen to sample a
wide range of directions in the specimen. However, as a
result of the way in which the specimen was mounted on
the diffrarctometer, the values of (χ, η) were confined
either to the plane perpendicular to the axial direction or
the plane perpendicular to the hoop direction. Because of
Fig. 13 Definition of direction in a tubular specimen
by the angles χ and η.
12636(p.602-607) 14.7.24 15:15 ページ 607
† Effect of Miss-alignment on Residual Stress in Carbon Steel Socket Welded Joint †
this confinement, the variations of strain about the radial
direction were not well mapped, and the value of ε12 could
not be determined very precisely. To find a strain tensor
from Eq.(4) a reasonable strain value of zero was includ-
ed in the data set for the intermediate direction (χ, η) =
(70°, −45°). This fictitious datum was assigned a large
uncertainty, ± 1 × 10−4, so it would not greatly influence
the strain tensor.
The fitted strain tensor is
(6)
Solving Eq.(5), the principal strains are
(7)
and the principal axes, in terms of the original coordinate
system (Axial, Hoop, Radial) are
(8)
The directions of the principal axes may be related to the
original coordinate system by the angle of tilt from the radi-
al direction, χ, and by the azimuthal angle from the axial
direction, η. The directions, (χ, η) for the x∗, y∗ and z∗ axes
are (96°, 8°), (69°, 85°) and (22°, −66°) respectively.
The principal axes deviate a little bit from the axial, hoop
and radial directions. The angular separation between the
axial direction and x∗ is about 10 degrees. The angular
separation between the hoop direction and y∗ is about 22
degrees, which is the same as the angular separation
between the radial direction and z∗. However, the princi-
pal strains are nearly the same as the analogous strains
measured in the axial, hoop and radial directions : 2.7 ×
10−4, 0.4 × 10−4 and 2.7 × 10−4 respectively. From Eq.(3)
and (7), the principal components of stress are calculated
to be σx = 65MPa, σy = 16MPa and σz = −25MPa, values
that agree with the stresses in the axial, hoop and radial
directions at ω = 0 degree.
At the start point of the weld, it has been shown that
the principal components of stress are essentially equal
to those that were determined by assuming that the
axial, hoop and radial directions were the principal axes.
Therefore, the low values of residual stress represent the
true stress state in the weldment and do not result from
the approximation that the principal axes are axial, hoop
and radial.
4 Conclusions
Neutron diffraction has provided a detailed map of the
circumferential variation of residual stresses at the root
of the fusion zone in a socket welded joint. Obtained
results are summarized as follows :
607
(1) The hoop directional residual strains at the weld
start and end points slightly exceed the maximum strain
measured in the circumferential directions. However this
seems not to explain the fatigue strength of socket welded
joint.
(2) The effect of misalignment between pipe and
socket is negligibly small. The highest tensile stress is
115MPa in the axial direction at the location of minimum
clearance between the pipe and the socket. This value
almost agrees with that measured in the socket welded
joint to mach the centers of pipe and socket.
(3) The principal axes and principal strain and stress
are determined for the root of the fusion zone at the weld
start point. The deviations of the principal axes from the
specimen-fixed directions, axial, hoop and radial are not so
much substantial and the maximum deviation is 22degrees.
This validates the assumption that the axial, hoop and radial
directions approximate the principal axes, for the calculation
of residual stresses from measured lattice strains. The prin-
cipal stresses well agree with the stresses in the axial, hoop
and radial directions at ω = 0 degree.
The technical assistance of J. Fox and L. McEwan are
important for the measurements. Discussions with Dr. T.
M. Holden are of great value in the development of a
computer program to analyze the principal components
of strain from measurements.
References
1 ) “Standards for X-ray stress measurement”, The Society of
Materials Science, Japan (1987).
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“Neutron diffraction methods for the study of residual
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Cracknell, “Residual strains in rolled joints”, Proceedings 9th
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