This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution Non-Commercial License which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received: November 28, 2023; Revised: December 07, 2023; Accepted: December 08, 2023
Abstract: Corrosion behaviors of laser-welded super duplex stainless steel (SDSS) tubes after exposure to an actual power plant environment for one year and those of fin-tube welded SDSS were evaluated. Results showed that corrosion damage on the back side of the SDSS tube in the direction of hot air was higher than that on the front side regardless of weldment location. However, corrosion damage showed no difference between weldment and base metal due to recovery of phase fraction in the weldment through post weld heat treatment (PWHT). Nevertheless, the SDSS tube showed severe corrosion damage along grain boundary due to surface phase transformation (δ → γ) and Cr2N precipitation caused by PWHT with a high N2 atmosphere. Corrosion resistance of the SDSS tube was recovered when degraded surface was removed. Corrosion sensitivity of a fin-tube increased significantly due to pre-existing crevice, unbalanced phase fraction, and σ phase precipitation adjacent to the fusion line. Although corrosion resistance was improved by recovered phase fraction and sufficient dissolution of σ phase during PWHT, corrosion reaction was concentrated at the pre-existing crevice. These results suggest that welding conditions for fin-tube steel should be optimized to improve corrosion resistance by removing pre-existing crevice in the weldment.