Structural behaviour of a welded superalloy cylinder with internal pressure in a high temperature environment

Steady and cyclic creep tests with internal pressure were performed at temperatures of 800 to 1000°C on Hastelloy X cylinders with and without a circumferential Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG) welding technique. The creep rupture strength of the TIG welded cylinders was much lower than that of the non-welded cylinders whilst creep rupture strength reduction by the TIG technique was not observed in uniaxial creep tests. The reason for the low creep strength of welded cylinders is discussed and it is noted that the creep ductility of weld metal plays an essentially important role.In order to improve the creep strength of the TIG welded cylinder, various welding procedures with assorted weld metals were investigated. Some improvements were obtained by using welding techniques which had either Incoloy 800 or a modified Hastelloy X material as the filler metal.