PLANER AND NON PLANER DISCONTINUITIES

Just as the basic steel manufacturing process can lead to the presence of
imperfections, welding also can lead to imperfections which may be signicant.

The types of imperfection can be grouped into three main areas:

1. planar discontinuities,
2. nonplanar (volumetric) discontinuities, and
3. prole imperfections.

By far the most serious of these are planar discontinuities, as these are sharp and
can be of a signicant size.

There are four main types of weld cracking which can occur in steels as planar
discontinuities. These are solidication (hot) cracking, hydrogen induced (cold)
cracking, lamellar tearing, and reheat cracking.

Hot cracking occurs during the solidication of a weld due to the rejection of
excessive impurities to the centreline. Impurities responsible are usually sulphur
and phosphorus.

The problem is controlled by keeping them to a low level and avoiding deep
narrow weld beads.

Cold cracking is due to the combination of a susceptible hardened

microstructure and the effects of hydrogen in the steel lattice.

The problem is avoided by control of the steel chemistry, arc energy heat input,
preheat level, quenching effect of the thickness of joints being welded, and by
careful attention to electrode coatings to keep hydrogen potential to very low
levels. Guidance on avoiding this type of cracking in the heat affected zones of
weldable structural steels is given in BS 5135.

Lamellar tearing is principally due to the presence of excessive non-metallic

inclusions in rolled steel products resulting in the splitting open of these inclusions
under the shrinkage forces of welds made on the surface. The non-metallic
inclusions usually responsible are either sulphides or silicates; manganese
sulphides are probably the most common.
The problem is avoided by keeping the impurity content low, particularly the
sulphur level to below about 0.010%, and by specifying tensile tests in the
through-thickness direction to show a minimum ductility by reduction of area
dependent on the amount of weld shrinkage anticipated (i.e. size of welded
attachment, values of R of A of 10% to 20% are usually adequate).

Reheat cracking is a form of cracking which can develop during stress relief
heat treatment or during high temperature service in particular types of steel
(usually molybdenum or vanadium bearing) where secondary precipitation of
carbides develops before relaxation of residual stresses has taken place.

Other forms of planar defect in welds are the operator or procedure defects of
lack of penetration and lock of fusion.

The volumetric/non-planar imperfections divide into the groups of solid inclusions

and gaseous inclusions.

The solid inclusions are usually slag from the electrode/ux coating and the
gaseous inclusions result from porosity trapped during the solidication of the
weld. In general the non-planar defects are much less critical than planar
defects of the same size and are usually limited in their effect because their size
is inherently limited by their nature.