Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Hydrogen Embrittlement Susceptibility and Fracture Toughness Measurements of Welded X65M Pipeline Steels

Published

Author(s)

Newell Moser, Zack Buck, Nicholas Derimow, May Ling Martin, Damian Lauria, Enrico Lucon, Peter Bradley, Matthew Connolly

Abstract

Hydrogen is known to deteriorate the mechanical performance of steels (i.e., hydrogen embrittlement). The welding processes involved in the manufacturing and joining of steel pipelines locally modifies the microstructure of the steel, further complicating the situation. NIST has acquired three steel pipes via industrial contacts to assess the susceptibility of seam welds to hydrogen embrittlement; these three pipes are made from API 5L X65M steel. The three steels were characterized in terms of microstructure, Charpy experiments (performed in air), and fracture toughness via single-edge notch bend specimens (performed in pressurized hydrogen). When testing in air, there was an apparent reduction in toughness for welded regions relative to the baseline material. In hydrogen, a significant reduction in toughness was observed throughout the steel, but out these regions, the welded regions were the toughest. Microstructural differences in the welded region, namely grain size and the presence of phases like bainite, likely play a large role in these performance differences.
Proceedings Title
Proceedings of the ASME 2024 Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference
Volume
4
Conference Dates
July 29-August 2, 2024
Conference Location
Bellevue, WA, US
Conference Title
ASME 2024 Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference

Keywords

hydrogen, weld, fracture, piping

Citation

Moser, N. , Buck, Z. , Derimow, N. , Martin, M. , Lauria, D. , Lucon, E. , Bradley, P. and Connolly, M. (2024), Hydrogen Embrittlement Susceptibility and Fracture Toughness Measurements of Welded X65M Pipeline Steels, Proceedings of the ASME 2024 Pressure Vessels & Piping Conference, Bellevue, WA, US, [online], https://doi.org/10.1115/PVP2024-122545, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=957494 (Accessed December 11, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created November 14, 2024, Updated November 18, 2024