Study on effect of grain refinement of P92 steel base plate on mechanical and microstructural features of the welded joint

The work described the effect of the grain refinement in virgin P92 steel plate on the microstructural and mechanical behavior of the P92 welded joint. The as-received P92 steel plate was subjected to varying heat-treatment, i.e., conventional heat treatment (CNT) and double normalized heat treatment (DNT) to refine the grain structure. The DNT is mainly done for the grain refinement in the as-received P92 steel plate. The autogenous gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW) process was utilized to prepare the P92 steel welds joint. Four set of the welds joint were prepared, two by using the CNT plate, termed as AW1 and two by using the DNT plate, termed as AW2. The welded plate has been subjected to heat treatment at 760 °C for 3 h (T1, T2) for both the conditions to stabilize the microstructure of weldments, i.e., tempering of the fresh martensite. The grain growth, particle size, and particle distribution in P92 weldments have been studied. For mechanical characterization, tensile tests, hardness tests and Charpy toughness tests (CTT) have been carried out. Soft δ ferrite formation was observed in weld fusion zone (WFZ) and coarse-grained heat-affected zone (CGHAZ) for AW and T condition and formation is attributed to high heat input and presence of the ferrite stabilizer like W and Mo. Heterogeny in microstructure and mechanical properties was measured across the weldments for AW condition and get minimized as a result of the PWHT. The average hardness for WFZ was measured 363 and 358 HV for AW1 and AW2 conditions, respectively. The difference in the hardness of WFZ can be neglect. The peak hardness of CGHAZ was measured at 358 and 397 HV for AW1 and AW2, respectively and it is attributed to the solid solution strengthening mechanism. The variation in hardness along the welded joint was reduced to a minimum level as a result of the heat treatment. The AW 2 welds joint showed maximum tensile strength of 943 MPa and get reduced drastically after the heat-treatment (T2) (700 MPa) but still showed a higher value as compared to T1 (602 MPa). A significant improvement in tensile strength without any loss in ductility was obtained for the welds joint prepared using the DNT plate as compared to CNT plate.