Heat Treatment - What is It

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Technical Articles
A Boiler: The Explosive Potential of a
Bomb
Acoustic Emission Examination of
Metal Pressure Vessels

Heat Treatment - What Is It?
J.G. Gillissie

Anatomy of a Catastrophic Boiler
Accident

October 1981

Austenitic Stainless Steel

Category: Design/Fabrication

Auto-Refrigeration

Summary: The following article is a part of National Board Classic Series and it was published in the National
Board BULLETIN. (4 printed pages)

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Introduction
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Steam Using Existing Boiler
Efficiencies
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Boiler/Burner Combustion Air Supply
Requirements and Maintenance
Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
Preventable With Complete Inspection
Combustion Air Requirements:The
Forgotten Element In Boiler Rooms
Creep and Creep Failures
Description of Construction and
Inspection Procedure for Steam
Locomotive and Fire Tube Boilers
Ensuring Safe Operation Of Vessels
With Quick-Opening Closures
Environmental Heat Exchangers
Factors Affecting Inservice Cracking
of Weld Zone in Corrosive Service
Failure Avoidance in Welded
Fabrication
Finite Element Analysis of Pressure
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Fuel Ash Corrosion
Fuel Firing Apparatus - Natural Gas
Grain Boundaries

A short time ago during a joint review of an ASME Certificate Holder, I found myself asking the question, "Do
you use heat treatment?"
The immediate answer was, "Oh yes."
I have asked the same question many hundreds of times in a like number of fabricators' shops, knowing full well
that my question was all-inclusive and covered a number of processes. Ninety-five times out of any hundred the
answer I got was a straight "yes" or "no." Once in a blue moon the company representative would explain that
he uses only stress relieving of weldments for those material P-numbers and material thicknesses as required
by the Code sections to which he is fabricating.
When I get an answer like that I think to myself, "This gent knows what he's talking about." At the same time, I
have a deep suspicion that HE is thinking to HIMSELF, "This clown probably doesn't know the difference
between stress relieving and stealing third base."
Generalized questions usually get generalized answers. As an example, if somebody asks me the question,
"Do you travel?", my answer would probably be, "Yes." If I were asked, "How do you travel?", my answer would
possibly be, "By airplane, train and automobile but not by bicycle, pogostick or horseback."
Get the point? There is a difference. There is nothing wrong with the term, "heat treatment," but it is a
generalized term covering various processes. Heat treatment in any of its forms is used to achieve a desirable
improvement in the characteristics of material or to regain those characteristics which may have been adversely
affected by production processes such as welding/bending/forming etc.
Let's take a short look at some of the most frequently used processes of heat treatment, those which the
Authorized Inspector may encounter in boiler and pressure vessel fabrication shops.
STRESS RELIEVING (postweld heat treatment)
This is by far the most frequently used form of heat treatment which will confront the authorized inspector. As a
result of welding processes used to join metals together, the base materials near the weldment, the deposited
weld metal and, in particular, the heat affected zones transform through various metallurgical phases.
Depending upon the chemistry of the metals in these areas, hardening occurs in various degrees, dependent
mainly upon carbon content. Again, this is particularly true in the heat affected zone (HAZ) adjacent to the weld
metal deposit where the highest stresses due to melting and solidification result. Stress relieving, as the name
implies, is designed to relieve a proportion of these imposed stresses by reducing the hardness and increasing
ductility, thus reducing danger of cracking in the vessel weldments.

Heat Treatment - What Is It?

The Code sections contain requirements for stress relieving, specifying rate of heating and cooling above 800oF
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How to Destroy a Boiler -- Part 2
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Inspection, What Better Place to
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Laminations Led to Incident
Lay-up of Heating Boilers
Liquid Penetrant Examination
Low Voltage Short Circuiting-GMAW
Low Water Cut-Off Technology
Low -Water Cutoff: A Maintenance
Must
Magnetic Particle Examination
Maintaining Proper Boiler Inspections
Through Proper Relationships
Microstructural Degradation

and requiring a holding temperature, usually one hour per inch of thickness of the material. The holding
temperatures vary with the P-numbers of the material which in turn are based on alloy content. As an example,
P-1 through P-4 require 1100-F holding temperature, P-1 being carbon steels, P-3 being carbon steels alloyed
in relatively small percent with molybdemum, manganese and vanadium. P-4 steels are the nickel steels,
chrome-molys and nickel- chrome-molys. P-5, P-6 and P-7 high alloy steels generally require a higher holding
temperature ranging up to 1350oF. Some of the special steels now listed in the Code sections call for even
higher temperatures.
Following the holding (soaking) time, controlled cooling down to 800oF or lower is vitally important. Many high
carbon steels are subject to surface cracking if cooled too rapidly.
QUENCHING AND TEMPERING
Oriented toward carbide steels such as carbon-moly, this process is designed to enhance toughness as well
as controlling yield strength and ultimate tensile strength of steel. The steel is heated to above its upper critical
temperature and quickly immersed in fresh water or brine to achieve rapid setting of the desired metallurgical
structure. Oil quenching is sometimes used. The usual practice is to quench until cooling reaches around
800oF, quickly followed by a tempering period in a fired furnace in order to soften the martensitic structure and
achieve the desired mechanical properties in the material including a desired measure of ductility. The
tempering process is, in effort, a stress relieving process.
NORMALIZING AND TEMPERING
This process is used for virtually the same purposes as quenching and tempering. It differs in that normalizing
is accomplished by cooling in air in place of fast quenching in a liquid. Air normalizing, much slower than liquid
quenching, may be used by itself or the material may be subjected to a controlled furnace tempering process in
order to better control desired mechanical properties.

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Miracle Fluid?
Organizing A Vessel, Tank, and
Piping Inspection Program
Paper Machine Failure Investigation:
Inspection Requirements Should Be
Changed For Dryer Can
Pipe Support Performance as It
Applies to Pow er Plant Safety and
Reliability
Polymer Use for Boilers and Pressure
Vessels
Pressure Vessels: Analyzing Change
Preventing Corrosion Under Insulation
Preventing Steam/Condensate
System Accidents
Proper Boiler Care Makes Good
Business Sense:Safety Precautions
for Drycleaning Businesses
Putting a Stop to Steam Kettle Failure
Quick Actuating Closures

Steel manufacturers will furnish material in either of the above conditions when so specified on the purchase
order or as required by the material specification.
As a cautionary note; alloyed steel mechanical properties are ultimately determined by the tempering process
and if the materials are subsequently welded during fabrication, subsequent stress relieving temperature, if
used, should not exceed that of the tempering process, otherwise mechanical properties of the material may be
adversely affected.
SOLUTION HEAT TREATMENT (solution annealing)
While the Code sections state that heat treatment of austenitic stainless steel (P-8) is neither required nor
prohibited, this refers to postweld stress relieving. There are certain processes to which this material may be
subjected. These are performed almost exclusively by the material manufacturers due to the fact that
temperature ranges and holding time are critical and require careful controls, otherwise damage to the material
can result from either too high or too low a furnace temperature. Material manufacturers have the metallurgical
staffs to determine requirements.
In solution heat treatment the material is subjected to a high heat, around 2000oF, and rapidly cooled in liquid
in order to achieve an evenly distributed solution of carbon and austenite in the metallurgical structure of the
material.
STABILIZING HEAT TREATMENT
Everything said in the first paragraph under solution heat treatment also applies to stabilizing heat treatment. In
the latter process the material is cooled slowly in order to bring as much carbon as possible out of solution and
into evenly distributed concentrations apart from the austenite.

Quick-Actuating Door Failures

Both solution heat treatment and stabilizing heat treatment are used to reduce susceptibility to intergranular
stress corrosion and embrittlement also to increase high temperature creep strength.

Real-Time Radioscopic Examination

PREHEATING

Recommendations For A Safe Boiler
Room

While most of us do not look upon preheating as a form of heat treatment, its use can contribute substantially
in reducing hardness in all three constituents of a weldment; the parent metal, the weld metal deposit and the
heat affected zone. As a weldment cools, it goes through various transformations in which molecules rearrange
themselves. If cooling is rapid, this rearrangement is arrested resulting in entrapment of stresses and hardening
of the material with coincident loss of ductility which is the highly desirable ability of the material to bend
elastically, under stress.

Recovering Boiler Systems After A
Flood
Rendering Plants Require Safety
Residential Water Heater Safety
School Boiler Maintenance Programs:
How Safe Are The Children?
Secondary Low -Water Fuel Cutoff
Probe: Is It as Safe as You Think?
Short-Term High Temperature
Failures
Specification of Rupture Disk Burst
Pressure
Steam Traps Affect Boiler Plant
Efficiency
Stress Corrosion Cracking of Steel in
Liquefied Ammonia Service - A
Recapitulation
Suggested Daily Boiler Log Program
Suggested Maintenance Log Program
System Design, Specifications,
Operation, and Inspection of
Deaerators
Tack Welding
Temperature And Pressure Relief
Valves Often Overlooked
Temperature Considerations for
Pressure Relief Valve Application
The Authorized Inspector's
Responsibility for Dimensional
Inspection
The Effects of Erosion-Corrosion on
Pow er Plant Piping
The Forgotten Boiler That Suddenly
Isn't
The Trend of Boiler/Pressure Vessel
Incidents: On the Decline?
The Use of Pressure Vessels for
Human Occupancy in Clinical
Hyberbaric Medicine
Thermally Induced Stress Cycling
(Thermal Shock) in Firetube Boilers
Typical Improper Repairs of Safety
Valves
Wasted Superheat Converted to Hot,

Preheating of the weldment area achieves better weld penetration and slows the cooling process, thus allowing
added relief of stresses and reduced hardening of the materials.
The ASME Code sections take cognizance of the foregoing, in some cases allowing exemption from postweld
stress relieving PROVIDED preheating of a specified temperature is used.
Here again, a word of caution is in order. Preheat, like any other heat treatment, must be carefully planned and
used. Specific written procedures should be provided for each individual use. Misuse, such as light surface
heating, can do more harm than good. A soaking heat and maintenance of interpass temperature throughout
the weldment - and beyond, are recommended.
In all cases, high chrome-moly steels should be preheated prior to welding and postweld stress relieved at
around 1400oF.
In summary, the authorized inspector (or ANI) is not assigned the duty of being an authority on metallurgy of all
the various ferrous and nonferrous materials used in boiler, pressure vessel or piping system fabrication. The
various Code sections do, however, require that results of heat treatment be made available to him for his review
in order that he may assure himself that temperature readings and holding (soaking) time conform with Code
requirements. Only a diligent study of Code requirements will enable him so make this decision.
As previously mentioned, heat treatments which will confront the AI-ANI are for the most part preheating and
postweld heat treatment, that is, stress relieving.
Some points to remember:
Post weld heat treatment is designed to return a metal as near as possible to its prefabrication state of yield,
ultimate tensile and ductility.
The rate of temperature rise, holding time at temperature and rate of cooling are vitally important. For this
reason, furnace thermocouples must measure metal temperature, not furnace atmospheric temperature.
Heat treatment of any type must be a planned, systematic action. Poorly performed heat treatment can result
in far more harm to material than any good which may result.
Test coupons must be subjected to the identical conditions as the vessel or part in order to obtain meaningful
tensile and toughness (Charpy) test results.
The foregoing is a short generalization. Specific requirements are found in ASME Section II "Material
Specifications" and in the "Material Tables", of the various Code sections.
Editor's note: Some ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code requirements may have changed because of
advances in material technology and/or actual experience. The reader is cautioned to refer to the latest edition
and addenda of the ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code for current requirements.

Wasted Superheat Converted to Hot,
Sanitary Water
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Prevent Boiler Scaling
Water Still Flashes to Steam at 212
Welding Consideration for Pressure
Relief Valves
Welding Symbols: A Useful System or
Undecipherable Hieroglyphics?
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Boilers After Summer Lay-Up?
Why? A Question for All Inspectors

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