Cryogenics 83 (2017) 1–7

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Cryogenics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cryogenics

Research paper

Effect of post weld heat treatment on the microstructure and mechanical

properties of ITER-grade 316LN austenitic stainless steel weldments
Jijun Xin a,b, Chao Fang a,⇑, Yuntao Song a, Jing Wei a, Shen Xu a, Jiefeng Wu a
a
Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei 230031, China
b
University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The effect of postweld heat treatment (PWHT) on the microstructure and mechanical properties of ITER-
Received 8 November 2016 grade 316LN austenitic stainless steel joints with ER316LMn filler material was investigated. PWHT aging
Received in revised form 29 December 2016 was performed for 1 h at four different temperatures of 600 °C, 760 °C, 870 °C and 920 °C, respectively.
Accepted 2 February 2017
The microstructure revealed the sigma phase precipitation occurred in the weld metals heat-treated at
Available online 4 February 2017
the temperature of 870 °C and 920 °C. The PWHT temperatures have the less effect on the tensile
strength, and the maximum tensile strength of the joints is about 630 MPa, reaching the 95% of the base
Keywords:
metal, whereas the elongation is enhanced with the rise of PWHT temperatures. Meanwhile, the sigma
316LN austenitic stainless steel
Post weld heat treatment
phase precipitation in the weld metals reduces the impact toughness.
Impact toughness Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Fracture
r-Phase

1. Introduction microstructure and mechanical properties of martensitic and

The 316LN austenitic stainless steel has been the backbone
structural material for many components due to its increase of
strength at cryogenic temperature and the nitrogen stabilizes the
austenitic phase. However, the relatively high contents of chro-
mium and molybdenum, which improve the corrosion resistance
of these steels, make the austenite unstable in the temperature
range of 650 °C to 900 °C with respect to formation of
chromium-rich carbides and intermetallic phases [1–4]. In particu-
lar, the presence of the r-phase, which is hard and brittle, harm-
fully affects the mechanical properties by creating local
embrittlement and forming microcracks at the r/c-phase inter-
faces during loading.
The 316LN austenitic stainless steel used in ITER components is
often welded, such as the cases of superconducting magnets of the
TF(Toroidal coil) and CC(Correction coil) [5–8]. The residual stress
and deformation of these components caused by welding and
machining should be closely monitored during fabrication. Obvi-
ously, the stress relieving after the welding is a critical process to
insure the manufacturing precision. Post weld heat treatment
(PWHT) was considered as a feasible method of reducing the resid-
ual stress and of minimizing the strength gradient across the weld
joint. Many papers have reported the effect of PWHT on
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: fangchao@ipp.ac.cn (C. Fang).
duplex stainless steel welds [9–13], few is known about the weld
joints in austenitic stainless steel. Thus, their PWHT process must
be done carefully and observation of their following changes must
be closely studied to avoid the detrimental effects.
The present investigation was concerned with an evaluation of
the effect of post weld heat treatment at 600 °C, 760 °C, 870 °C and
920 °C on the microstructure, tensile properties and impact tough-
ness of 316LN austenitic stainless steel weldments conducted
through TIG welding technique with 316LMn filler metals since
the wires are expected to provide a fully austenitic microstructure
in the weld. The correlation between the changes in the
microstructure during aging treatment, and impact toughness of
the investigated materials was assessed in order to obtain the opti-
mum PWHT temperature for reducing the residual stress in the
weld and assure the manufacturing precision.
2. Experimental
The 316LN austenitic stainless steel plates were manufactured
by TISCO(China) and the plates are solution-treated at 1050 °C
for 140 min and water quenched. The chemical compositions of
316LN and its filler metal ER 316LMn (1.4455) were shown in
Table 1 which detected by atomic emission spectrometer, and
the mechanical properties of the base metal at room temperature
is shown in Table 2. The XRD analysis of the base metal shows
the single austenitic phase, no carbide or nitride was found in

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cryogenics.2017.02.001
0011-2275/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 J. Xin et al. / Cryogenics 83 (2017) 1–7

Table 1
Chemical composition of base material (316LN) and filler material (ER 316LMn).

C Cr Ni Si Mn Mo N P S Co Nb B Fe
316LN 0.014 16.46 12.98 0.51 1.70 2.10 0.14 0.012 0.002 0.03 0.011 0.001 Balance
ER316LMn 0.009 20.3 15.5 0.49 7.0 2.9 0.17 0.01 0.005 – – – Balance

Table 2
Mechanical properties of the base metals.

Elongation [%] Yield strength [MPa] Ultimate tensile strength [MPa] Impact toughness [J/cm2]
316LN 55.0 352 665 >300

Fig. 1. XRD result of the 316LN austenitic stainless steel.

Fig. 1. The butt joints of 360  150  35 mm 316LN plates were

welded by TIG with the welding parameters which shown in the
Table 3 and the welding groove is shown in Fig. 2. The shield gas
was Argon and the maximum inter-pass temperature was strictly
controlled below 80 °C. The joints were held at temperatures of
600, 760, 870 and 920 °C in the RVSB-7816 vacuum furnace for
1 h, and then cooled at ambient temperature in the air. The
microstructure of joints and basic metal were analyzed with opti-
cal microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM, SU8020)
Fig. 2. Groove design of welding joint.
with energy dispersion system (EDS) techniques. The phases in the
different PWHT temperature of the 316LN weldments were ana-
lyzed by using a D8 ADVANCE X-ray diffractometer with Cu Ka ting process. The dimensions of the samples extracted from the
radiation of wavelength 1.544 Å. joints were shown in Fig. 3. The tensile test was performed on
The tensile strength and impact toughness with Charpy V notch the WA-1000A electro-hydraulic universal testing machine, the
of different aging temperatures were investigated according to the impact test specimens were immersing in the liquid nitrogen and
EN ISO4136:2012 and EN ISO9016:2012 standards, respectively. then tested on the impact testing machine in few seconds. The
Impact test and cross-weld tensile specimens were extracted from fractured morphologies of weldments were characterized by SEM
the steady state region of the joints using the wire-electrode cut- and EDS.

Table 3
Process parameters of TIG welding,

Passes Voltage [V] Current [A] Flow rate [L/min] Welding speed [mm/min] Filler wire dia. [mm]
Root pass 8–15 140 10–15 100–140 2.4
Fill passes 8–15 180–200 10–15 100–140 2.4
Cover pass 8–15 140–160 10–15 100–140 2.4
 J. Xin et al. / Cryogenics 83 (2017) 1–7
Fig. 3. Test specimen dimensions: (a) tensile test specimen; and (b) Charpy V-notch impact test specimen.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Metallographic examination
Fig. 4 shows the microstructure of the base metal and fusion
zone in the transverse joints under as-welded and PWHT condi-
tions. Fig. 4(a) shows the typical microstructure of the 316LN base
metal which indicates the single austenite phase containing twins,
the grain size is floating with the maximum at 100 lm and the
minimum at 40 lm. Fig. 4(b) shows the microstructure of as-
welded metal. According to the Creq/Nieq ratios which are calcu-
lated by using the Schaeffler formula, the weld metals solidified
in A mode with the single austenite phase. It is observed that the
morphology of the austenite changes into cells and dendrites after
welding, the columnar dendrites grow along transverse direction,
and the dimension of cells is very fine. It is hardly found that there
are any solidification grain boundaries (SGBs) resulting from the
intersection of packets of subgrains in fusion zone of as-welded
joint. In addition, it is also hardly found that there are any particles
in interdendritic region(Fig. 4b).The interdendritic region was
known as solidification subgrain boundary(SSGB) separating adja-
cent subgrains. Fig. 4(c–f) show the microstructures of fusion zone
with various aging temperatures. Comparing with the fusion zone
of as-welded joint, the microstructure is slight change aging at
600 °C, however, the size of cells and dendrites in the fusion zone
is increasing when aging at 760 °C, as shown in Fig. 4(c) and (d),
respectively. As aging temperature increases, there are many SGBs
and quantities of black particles at SSGBs are appearing when
aging at 870 °C and 920 °C, as shown in Fig. 4(e) and (f). In addition,
the subgrains are less evident than that of the as-welded joint and
aging at low temperatures shown in Fig. 4(b–d). While, the
migrated grain boundaries (MGBs) were found when aging at
higher temperatures of 870 °C and 920 °C, the MGBs were charac-
terized by a high impurity level and misorientation that leads to
instability. And the secondary phase may be precipitated in these
grain boundary.
Fig. 5 shows the effect of the different aging temperatures on
the XRD patterns in the fusion zones of the 316LN welding joints.
3
They are mainly comprised of one phase (austenite) without clear
evidence of the precipitations of the secondary phases (such as
r-phase and M23C6) and inclusions due to their relatively low
contents. Thus, in order to detecting the precipitations in the
grain boundaries, the SEM images of welding sample aged at
870 °C is presented in Fig. 6(a). The significant feature of the
microstructure is the presence of precipitated phase at the grain
boundaries. The precipitations in the fusion zone after aging at
870 °C have maximum size of 8 ± 0.5 lm in length and
1 ± 0.5 lm in thickness. The average chemical composition of
the precipitated phase was determined by energy dispersive
spectrometer attached to scanning electron microscope which is
shown in Fig. 6(b). The phase is rich in Cr and Mo, which is dif-
ferent from the composition adjacent to the phase, and according
to the literature [14], a typical sigma phase composition for the
AISI 316L steel type is 44% Fe - 29% Cr - 8% Mo. The content of
principal elements of the phase determined by EDS is almost
same to this value, and the precipitated phase can be inferred
to be the r phase.
The fact that there is enough time for sigma phase formations to
occur during the aging, but the precipitations could not be detected
in the results of the XRD analysis indicates that the amount of such
precipitations is below 5% even though their presence was
observed in SEM examinations. It has been reported that small pre-
cipitations that form at amounts below 5% cannot be identified via
the XRD pattern [10].The mechanism of sigma phase nucleation is
still a matter of controversy and depends on the amount of delta
ferrite. The delta ferrite content of the fusion zone plays an impor-
tant role in determining fabrication and service performance of the
welded structures [15]. For the 316LN austenitic stainless steel
weld, the welding filler material was ER316LMn since the rods
are expected to provide a fully austenitic microstructure in the
weld. The nucleation of the sigma phase is limit and the high con-
tent of nitrogen in the 316LN austenitic stainless steel will also
retard sigma formation. Further, the diffusion rates of the alloying
elements in the ferrite are about 100 times faster than in the
austenite [12]. Thus, the quantity of the sigma phase is exhibited
at a very low level in the welds.
4 J. Xin et al. / Cryogenics 83 (2017) 1–7

(a) (b)

Cells
Dendrites

100μm 100μm

(c) (d)

100μm 100μm

(e) (f)

100μm 100μm

Fig. 4. Microstructure of fusion zone (a) base metal, (b) as-welded, (c) 600 °C, (d) 760 °C, (e) 870 °C and (f) 920 °C.

3.2. Tensile property of 316LN austenitic stainless steel welds

Fig. 7 shows the measured tensile properties at room temper-

Fig. 5. XRD result of the 316LN stainless steel weld joint and after PWHT.
ature (RT) of the as-welded and PWHT joints. For all samples
properties were above specified values at RT (Rp0.2 > 250 MPa,
Rm > 480 MPa, A > 35% with a target of 40%)[16]. As compared
to the base metal list in Table 2, the yield strength of test sam-
ples of as welded and different PWHT aging are determined to
be 380 MPa which is larger than the 352 MPa of base metal,
while their tensile strength are about 630 MPa, reaching the
95% of the basic metal. The yield and tensile values of the PWHT
samples are nearly the same, this indicates that the PWHT tem-
perature has less effect on the tensile properties. But the elonga-
tion of the samples exhibited improvement as the PWHT
temperatures increasing which is due to the reduction of the
residual stress in the samples. Also the fractures of all samples
are located at the base metal, this demonstrated that welding
parameters and heat treatment temperatures applied on the
plates are appropriate.
 J. Xin et al. / Cryogenics 83 (2017) 1–7 5

(a) (b)

Fig. 6. SEM micrographs of 316LN austenitic stainless steel weld aged at 870 °C.

Fig. 7. Tensile properties of the as-welded and PWHT samples at RT.

3.3. Impact property of 316LN austenitic stainless steel welds

The results of the Charpy V-notch impact test samples of fusion

zone in as-welded and different PWHT aging conditions are shown
in Fig. 8 (at 77 K). The tendency of impact toughness for weldments
of these tested samples at first showed an increase with increasing
temperature. However, this trend later reversed and toughness
decreased with increasging temperature. The impact toughness
of weldments after aging at 600 °C and 760 °C are larger when
compared to the as-welded condition, the toughness value are
108 J/cm2 and 123.6 J/cm2 which exceeded the value of as-
welded weldment of 103.8 J/cm2. As temperature continue to
increasing, the impact toughness is drastically decreased. The loss
of impact toughness for 870 °C and 920 °C weld is 24.1% and 39.1%,
respectively. For as-welded condition, the internal residual stresses
caused by the welding leading to a reduction in the impact tough-
ness of the weldment. As the aging temperature increasing, the
stress relieving effect is increasing, thus, the impact toughness
value of weldments aging at 600 °C and 760 °C are higher than
Fig. 8. The impact toughness of the 316LN austenitic stainless steel welds at 77 K.
as-welded condition. However, as the aging temperature continue
to increasing, the embrittlement sigma phase significantly deterio-
rated the impact toughness of the weldments, result in the Fig. 9 shows the SEM fractography of impact test samples per-
decreasing impact toughness as the aging temperature increasing formed at 77 K for original as-welded materials and PWHT welds.
to 870 °C and 920 °C. The fracture mode of all samples tested at 77 K displaying fibrous
6 J. Xin et al. / Cryogenics 83 (2017) 1–7
(a)
2μm
(c)
2μm
(e)
Fig. 9. SEM micrographs of the fractured impact test samples of TIG austenitic stainless steel welds (a) as-welded, (b) 600 °C, (c) 760 °C, (d) 870 °Cand (e) 920 °C.
fractures with typical dimples and without cleavage. Fig. 9(a) is
representative of the fracture surfaces of as-welded weldment,
the typical dimple appearance associated to ductile-dimple frac-
ture with a high microvoid density can be observed. This may be
attributed to the existence of an all austenite microstructure which
shows a good toughness. Meanwhile the PWHT weldments at
600 °C and 760 °C show the same fracture mode to the as-
welded weldment without any precipitate particles. As the PWHT
temperature increases, the dimples and microvoids became small
and shallow, which indicates the deterioration of toughness. This
could be reasoned out by the formation of precipitates which were
observed from the microstructure analysis. It is also evident from
the SEM fractographs, these precipitates are rather brittle and pre-
sent numerous secondary cracks on fracture surface. However, the
PWHT at 870 °Cand 920 °C weld samples show ductile fracture
mode in general. Although precipitates are observed on both sam-
ples as shown in fig. 9(d) and (e), dimples at the periphery of these
precipitates are observed on the fracture surface which presents
ductile dimples in nature.
The SEM equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometer was
also applied for the observation of the precipitates and the analysis
of its composition on the fracture surface. As can be seen in Fig.10,
(b)
2μm
(d)
2μm
2μm
the brittle phase is distributed in the austenite matrix. The chem-
ical composition of the precipitates determined by EDS corre-
sponding to the microstructure observation in Fig. 6. According
to the result of EDS spectrum, the brittle phase is also rich in Cr
and Mo, which infered to be r phase.
4. Conclusion
In this investigation, the microstructure and mechanical prop-
erties of 316LN austenitic stainless steel weldments subjected to
different PWHT temperature were studied, the main conclusions
are summarized below:
(1) It is hardly found that there are any precipitates in the fusion
zone of as-welded and aging at 600 °Cand 760 °C, and the
SGBs and MGBs and precipitated phase are found at the
higher aging temperatures of 870 °C and 920 °C, and is
inferred to be the r phase since the chemical composition
is detected by EDS.
(2) The fractures of the tensile sample are all located at the base
material. The PWHT aging enhanced the elongation and has
no detrimental effect on the tensile strength.
 J. Xin et al. / Cryogenics 83 (2017) 1–7
(a)
2μm
(c)
2μm
Fig. 10. EDS spectrum of precipitates observed on fracture surfaces (a) (b) PWHT at 870 °C, (c) (d) PWHT at 920 °C.
(3) The highest impact toughness after PWHT aging is obtained
at 760 °C. The impact toughness increased from 600 °C to
760 °C because of residual stress relieving, while the impact
toughness is significantly reduced for samples with PWHT at
870 °C and 920 °C. This is caused by the brittle sigma phase.
The impact fracture mode of all samples present the local
ductile fracture even if there existed a brittle precipitated
phase in weld after aging.
‘‘The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily
reflect those of the ITER Organization”
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the CNDA ITER IO magnet divi-
sion for their funding and contribution to the definition of CC tech-
nical specification and development of task packages. In addition,
the authors also would like to thank Professor Stefano Sgobba from
CERN for his suggestion on microstructure analysis in this paper.
References
[1] Sahlaoui H, Sidhom H, Philibert J. Prediction of chromium depleted-zone
evolution during aging of Ni–Cr–Fe alloys. Acta Mater 2002;50(6):1383–92.
[2] Sahlaoui H, Makhlouf K, Sidhom H, et al. Effects of ageing conditions on the
precipitates evolution, chromium depletion and intergranular corrosion
susceptibility of AISI 316L: experimental and modeling results. Mater Sci
Eng, A 2004;372(1–2):98–108.
7
(b)
(d)
[3] Sahlaoui Habib, Sidhom Habib. Experimental investigation and analytical
prediction of r phase precipitation in AISI 316L austenitic stainless steel.
Metall. Mater. Trans. A 2013;44(7):3077–83.
[4] Kim YH, Lee DJ, Byun JC, et al. The effect of sigma phases formation depending
on Cr/Ni equivalent ratio in AISI 316L weldments. Mater Des 2011;32
(1):330–6.
[5] Foussat A, Weiyue Wu, Jing Wei, et al. Mechanical design and construction
qualification program on ITER correction coils structures. Nucl Eng Des
2014;269:116–24.
[6] Foussat A, Libeyre P, Mitchell N, Gribov Y, Jong C, Bessette D, et al. Overview of
the ITER correction coils design. IEEE Transac. Appl. Supercond. 2010;20
(3):402–6.
[7] Libeyre P, Cormany C, Dolgetta N. Preparation of the manufacture of the ITER
correction coils. Fusion Eng Des 2013;88(9–10):1478–81.
[8] Wei J, Wu W, Han S, et al. Progress of the ITER correction coils in China. IEEE
Trans Appl Supercond 2014;24(3):4202005.
[9] Zhang Ziying, Wang Zhiyu, Jiang Yiming, et al. Effect of post-weld heat
treatment on microstructure evolution and pitting corrosion behavior of UNS
S31803 duplex stainless steel welds. Corros Sci 2012;62:42–50.
[10] Köse Ceyhun, Kaçar Ramazan. The effect of preheat & post weld heat treatment
on the laser weldability of AISI 420 martensitic stainless steel. Mater Des
2014;64:221–6.
[11] Kashiwara A, Phani Vennela N, Kamath SL. Effect of solution annealing
temperature on precipitation in 2205 duplex stainless steel. Mater Charact
2012;74:55–63.
[12] Badji R, Bouabdallah M, Bacroix B, et al. Effect of solution treatment
temperature on the precipitation kinetic of r-phase in 2205 duplex stainless
steel welds. Mater Sci Eng, A 2008;496:447–54.
[13] Jiang Wen, Zhao Kun-yu, Ye Dong, et al. Effect of heat treatment on reversed
austenite in Cr15 super martensitic stainless steel. J Iron Steel Res Int 2013;20
(5):61–5.
[14] SourMaiL t. Precipitation in creep resistant austenitic stainless steels. Mater
Sci Technol 2001;17(1):1–14.
[15] Stjepan Kožuh et al. The effect of annealing on properties of AISI 316L base and
weld metals. Mater. Geoenviron. 2007;54(3):331–44.
[16] Libeyre P, Bessette D, Devred A. Conductor jacket development to meet the
mechanical requirements of the ITER central solenoid coils. Fusion Eng Des
2011;86(6–8):1553–7.