Metallurgical Failure Analysis - Forensic Engineering

Metallurgical failure analysis and metal corrosion testing services provided by Metallurgical Technologies, Inc. can help minimize and eliminate the undesirable aspects of unexpected down time in the chemical industry. We specialize in rapid response. When the root cause of the metallurgical failure is identified, results are communicated immediately. Recommendations can be made to help prevent future unscheduled events.

Metallurgical Failure analysis of cracked stainless steel heat exchanger tubes

Two cracked 316L stainless steel tubes from a sodium hydroxide heat exchanger were analyzed to determine the cause of cracking. The tubes are 0.750-in. OD x 18 gage specified SA-249, Type 316L. Both tubes exhibit circumferential cracks near the end where they are expanded into the tube sheet.

One of the cracks was opened to examine the fracture surface topography. The opened crack surface was examined at various magnifications using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) as detailed here. The surface appears brittle with several axial crack branches intersecting the circumferential crack plane.

The crack surface exhibited several localized regions of shallow intergranular progression along the ID. The depth of intergranular cracking was only two or three grains deep along the ID. The rest of the surface is mainly transgranular, a characteristic of caustic stress corrosion cracking.

An axial cross-section was taken through the end of the crack and prepared for metallurgical failure analysis to investigate the crack morphology and surrounding microstructure. The crack opening is at the ID surface in a small pit within a zone of shallow intergranular corrosion.

The middle and tip of the crack are transgranular and exhibit multiple crack branches indicative of stress corrosion cracking (SCC).

CONCLUSIONS:
Results indicate the tubes cracked circumferential from the ID surface at the top of a tube sheet expansion due to caustic stress corrosion cracking (SCC). The circumferential cracks initiated in small patches of intergranular corrosion in the ID surface. The main cracks were transgranular with multiple branches which are characteristics of stress corrosion cracking in austenitic stainless steel. Reported temperatures indicate the tube wall is within the temperature range of susceptibility to caustic SCC. Residual stresses from the expansion process resulted in tensile stresses on the tube ID slightly above the upper edge of the expansion transition. Higher nickel alloys such as Inconel 600 or 690 exhibit superior resistance to caustic SCC (stress corrosion cracking) at expected operating temperatures and should be considered as alternate tubing materials. Forensic examination of a failed component can prevent recurring failures, help with preventive detection, and suggest remedies. If you have a component failure that you would like investigated, just take a moment to fill in ourinformation request form and we'll gladly give you an estimate.

Abstract
The shell and tube heat exchanger failed before 5 years of operation. The failure was caused by pits on the tube outside surface developing until its perforation. Inside the Cu-DHP tubes in soft temper a cooling agent circulated to cool down industrial water at the shell side from 16 to 4 C. The cooled water was hard, rich in chloride ions with relatively low sulphate ions concentration and pH ranging from 4 to 7. The leaking tubes were subject to standard metallographic examination, hardness measurement, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray energy dispersion analysis. It was found that the tube damage was caused by erosioncorrosion induced by two factors: disturbed flow of water containing suspended solid particles and chemical composition of water rich in chlorides that resulted in loss of stability of protective cuprous oxide layer.

This paper discussed the impacts of shock and vibration testing on heat pipes; it showed the performance of experimental results of heat pipes with various axial accelerations and incline angles in consumer product reliability testing. We utilized the vibration and shock machine and adopted related parameters for experiment, such as basic shock at 40g in a 2.5 ms half-sine wave, random vibrations frequency from 5 to 100 Hz and different incline angle with 10, 30, and 45respectively. The final data of temperature and thermal resistance were discussed and compared with each other. The results showed that when the vibration is applied from 1.0g to 1.5g, the generated additional force result in the increase of thermal resistance slightly, and the average increase about 5~30. Besides, the extra force from instant impact has no clear influence on the temperature and thermal resistance in shock testing. After a series experiment in this study, we should take more concern in vibration test in reliability. Further investigation will be performed on the performance of various heat pipes and random vibration. The final study will provide useful information for product failure analysis and further benefit the improvement in thermal dissipation design.