Offshore-Windenergieanlagen bilden einen zentralen Bestandteil der zukünftigen Energieerzeugung. Hierzu notwendige Gründungs- und Turmstrukturen werden vorrangig aus UP-geschweißten Blechen aus hochfesten niedriglegierten Stählen mit Dicken bis zu 200 mm hergestellt. Die großen Blechdicken begünstigen hohe Schweißeigenspannungen und lange Diffusionswege für z. B. über den Schweißprozess eingebrachten Wasserstoff. Damit steigt das Risiko für eine wasserstoffunterstützte Kaltrissbildung (WKB) an. Zum sichereren Ausschluss von WKB in den geschweißten Komponenten wird in Abhängigkeit der Nahtgröße, Wärmeeinbringung und Stahlsorte eine Mindestwartezeit (MWZ) von bis zu 48 h empfohlen, bevor die zerstörungsfreie Prüfung durchgeführt wird. Es ist allerdings offen, ob die empfohlene MWZ zu konservativ ist. Einflüsse sind hier bspw. die schwierige Bewertung des Wasserstoffdiffusionsverhaltens im heterogenen UP-Mehrlagen-Schweißgut (SG) im Vergleich zum Grundwerkstoff (GW).
Zudem sind nur sehr begrenzt H-Diffusionskoeffizienten für UP-Mehrlagen-SG als Grundlage zur Abschätzung des Zeitintervalls einer möglichen verzögerten Kaltrissbildung (somit MWZ) oder auch für Nachwärmprozeduren zur Wasserstoffreduktion (keine MWZ) verfügbar. Verlässliche H-Diffusionskoeffizienten sind daher ein adäquates Tool zur Bewertung des Risikos einer verzögerten WKB. Dieser Beitrag beschreibt Untersuchungen zur Charakterisierung der Wasserstoffdiffusionsverhalten in UP-Mehrlagen-SG eines 60 mm dicken Bleches einer Offshore-Stahlgüte.
Dazu wurden Proben unterschiedlicher Dicke aus dem reinen Schweißgut extrahiert und über elektrochemische Permeation und Trägergasheißextraktion im Temperaturbereich bis 400 °C sehr interessante Ergebnisse zu den korrespondierenden Diffusionskoeffizienten erarbeitet.
Laboratory experiments on press hardened steels in different delivered states exposed to hydrogen
(2015)
The legal and economical demands in the automotive industry lead to increasing efforts reducing the CO2 emissions. A way to achieve that goal is to reduce the total weight of the car and therefore the fuel consumption. With the application of high strength steels in car body manufacturing it is possible to decrease the sheet thickness of the used materials and therefore the weight of the automobile. Components made of high strength steels can be produced by cold forming as well as by hot forming. In high strength steel the hydrogen content plays a crucial role for the component behavior. It is known that the hydrogen diffusivity and solubility are based on several factors, for example increasing dislocation density by cold working processes, vacancies, chemical composition and grain boundaries. The understanding and the control of the interaction between hydrogen and the high strength press hardened steels is an important factor for the application of the materials. The scope of this work is the determination of hydrogen diffusion and permeability kinetics in press hardened steel samples. An electrochemical hydrogen permeation method was applied on boron-manganese steel grades with different rolling reduction in initial ferrite/pearlite matrix as well as for the as-quenched martensite microstructure. The diffusible hydrogen contents of the specimens were measured using the carrier gas hot extraction technique (CGHE).
In the field of modelling hydrogen assisted cracking (HAC) phenomenon, hydrogen diffusivity is an important input parameter for numerical simulation. In terms of hydrogen diffusion coefficients, they have great impact on realistic assessment of the evolution of possible crack critical hydrogen concentrations. In addition, the chemical compositions of steels can have a strong effect on hydrogen diffusion. Unfortunately, literature provides a wide range of available hydrogen diffusion coefficients even for similar microstructures and equal temperatures. The scattering of the data can lead to significant deviations in the results of simulating the evolving hydrogen concentrations due to hydrogen uptake (by fabrication or service). Thus, the application of such data to crack-models or for component life tie predictions can be realized up to the present only by considering envelope curves of such value, corresponding to a work or bench case scenario, respectively. For improved reliability of numerical simulaitons, it is necessary to minimize the mentioned deviation of these data. Hence, this work focuses on the validation of hydrogen diffusion coefficients obtained from permeation experiments at room temperature. Two baintic steels with different alloying concepts were investigated, the creep-resistant 7CrMoVTiB10-10 and the reactor pressure vessel grade 20MnMoNi4-5. A numerical model is presented for simulation of the corresponding hydrogen diffusion during permeation experiments using the finite element software ANSYS. Three different diffusion coefficients (obtained from different common calculation methods) are considered and compared to numerical results. The vases of thes calculation methods are permeation transients which are a direct measure for hydrogen. The results of the simulated hydrogen diffusion coefficients show that only one procedure for calculation of diffusion coefficitnes is suitable in comparision to the experimental values. Thus, it is suggested to use this method for analysis of experimental results in case of hydrogen diffusion during permeation experiments. Furthermore, this work supplies validated values for the hydrogen diffusion coefficients of both steel grades.