Lamellar Tearing: A Failure Case Study.

A variety of materials are used in the Oil & Gas industry ranging from carbon steel, stainless steel to nickel alloys, etc. including non-metallic materials as well. Amongst these, carbon steel is the industry favorite because of many of its desirable attributes like machinability, weldability, availability, and cost. Wide use of carbon steel in the industry is also due to the presence of required properties for the specific application. In spite of carbon steel's wide uses, poor workmanship, improper heat treatment, or negligent manufacturing processes can reduce its service life and also can lead to unexpected failures. One such failure case involves carbon steel plate meant for construction of a tank that failed by cracking immediately after the welding operation. A detailed investigation was carried out by means of visual examination, metallographic and chemical analysis, SEM, and EDAX analysis. Microstructure revealed banded pearlitic structure along with a number of inclusions, a few of which were elongated. In conclusion, stresses due to weld joint restraint, elongated inclusions, and high transverse direction stresses after welding resulted in lamellar tearing which propagated in the linear direction along the weld line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]