Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 4035–4042

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Materials Science and Engineering A

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/msea

Correlation between microstructure, hardness and strength in

HAZ of dissimilar welds of rotor steels
Ming-Liang Zhu, Fu-Zhen Xuan ∗
Key Laboratory of Safety Science of Pressurized System, MOE, School of Mechanical Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology,
130, Meilong Street, PO Box 402, Shanghai 200237, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Correlation between microstructure, hardness and strength was investigated in heat affected zone
Received 3 January 2010 (HAZ) of dissimilar welding joints of newly developed rotor steels in terms of both the traditional
Received in revised form 27 February 2010 micro-hardness testing and the nanoindentation technique. Relationships between micro-hardness and
Accepted 16 March 2010
nano-hardness were obtained for HAZ of welds, where the mechanical properties were microstructure
dependent. Lath width of the tempered martensites was selected as the characteristic microstructure size
for correlating the micro-hardness. The detailed strength distribution in HAZ and the correlation with
Keywords:
the characteristic microstructure size were discussed. A good agreement was observed for the correlated
Nano-hardness
Micro-hardness
strength and the experimental results in both weld metal (WM) and base metal (BM), and therefore gave
Strength distribution us confidence for the application of the proposed relationship between the hardness and the mechanical
HAZ properties in HAZ of the dissimilar weld.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction bine rotors [17]. The present work reports some results of the
microstructure characterization and hardness measurements on
Dissimilar welds are widely employed to join different metals dissimilar welding joints of two newly developed rotor steels.
together to meet various property requirements in the integrated Hardness has been obtained by both the traditional micro-
structures. In the past few decades, many investigations have been hardness testing method and the nanoindentation technique
made on the manufacture of the traditional fusion welding [1–3] [18–20]. Special emphases are placed on the correlation between
and the advanced friction stir welding [4–6], and on the mechani- microstructure, hardness and strength distribution in HAZ of the
cal performance of dissimilar weld joints, such as fatigue [7], creep dissimilar welding joint, and comparison of hardness obtained from
[8], fracture [9], limit load [10], structure integrity assessment [11], micro- and nano-methods has also been highlighted.
and residual stress [12]. It is known that the performance of the
whole weld joints is governed by each component such as base
metal (BM), weld metal (WM) and heat affected zone (HAZ). Espe- 2. Materials and experiments
cially, HAZ plays an important role in the reliability of the whole
welded structures. In this work, two rotor steels, i.e., 23CrMoNiWV88 for interme-
Correlations between the microstructure and the hardness diate pressure (IP) part and 26NiCrMoV145 for low pressure (LP)
in weld joints [13], and the relationship between hardness and part, were welded together by using multilayer tungsten inert gas
strength have been established for engineering materials [14–16]. (TIG) welding and submerged arc welding (SAW) techniques. As
However, information of mechanical properties in HAZ is still an shown in Fig. 1, TIG is at the bottom while SAW is at the top. The
unsettled issue. Especially the quantitative strength distribution in chemical compositions of the welding base metal (BM) are shown
HAZ has rarely been reported so far. Therefore, it is quite signif- in Table 1. Prior to welding, IP was quenched at 920 ◦ C for 36.5 h
icant to investigate the relationship between the microstructure, with water spraying and tempered at 645 ◦ C for 30 h while LP was
hardness and strength distribution in HAZ. quenched at 840 ◦ C for 55 h with water immersion and tempered at
Recently, welding techniques have been widely used in power 585 ◦ C for 60 h. The mechanical properties of IP and LP BM are listed
industry to manufacture large components such as the welded tur- in Table 2. Post-weld heat treatment (PWHT) has been performed
at 620 ◦ C for 10 h. Mechanical properties of WM after PWHT are
also listed in Table 2.
Two specimens with size of 30 mm × 10 mm × 10 mm were pre-
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 21 64252819; fax: +86 21 64253425. pared for nano-hardness testing. As shown in Fig. 1, one is located in
E-mail address: fzxuan@ecust.edu.cn (F.-Z. Xuan). the upper side and the other is at the downside of the SAW weld-

0921-5093/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.msea.2010.03.066
4036 M.-L. Zhu, F.-Z. Xuan / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 4035–4042

Fig. 1. Schematic of the dissimilar welding joint and specimen preparation for hardness tests.

Table 1
Chemical composition (wt.%) of base materials in IP and LP.

Materials C Si Mn P S Ni Cr Mo V Sn As Sb

IP, 23CrMoNiWV88 0.23 0.06 0.70 0.006 0.002 0.74 2.09 0.82 0.29 0.005 0.005 0.0013
LP, 26NiCrMoV145 0.25 0.04 0.29 0.005 0.001 3.56 1.71 0.38 0.09 0.003 0.004 0.0013

Table 2
Mechanical properties of base materials in IP and LP and WM.

Materials Yield strength  0.2 (MPa) Ultimate tensile strength  b (MPa) Elongation ı (%) Reduction of area (%)

IP, 23CrMoNiWV88 703 816 19 74

LP, 26NiCrMoV145 835.5 938 20 73
WM 723 788 24 69

ing joints through radial direction. The specimens were polished interval in HAZ and BM was fixed at 200 ␮m, while in WM the
to optical flatness with a series of sand papers. Nanoindentation distance was 1 mm.
hardness was measured using a nano-indenter with a Berkovich Micro-hardness test specimens were cut from the nano-
type diamond tip and a face angle of 142.3◦ at room temperature. hardness test specimens with a size of 30 mm × 10 mm × 3.6 mm
The direction of testing is along the center line of the specimens (Fig. 1). They were mechanically polished, and then chemically
crossing the WM (Fig. 1). A constant peak force of 0.049 N was used etched in a solution of 4% HNO3 + ethanol. Micro-Vickers hardness
for all the indentations with a holding time of 30 s. The hardness is measurements were conducted along the specimen center line on
determined from the load–penetration depth curve of the indenta- a hardness tester (HXD-1000TM) at room temperature by holding
tion using the method of Oliver and Pharr [21]. The measurement a test load of 4.9 N for 15 s. Micro-hardness values were directly

Fig. 2. Microstructures of IP (a) and LP (b) base metals showing granular tempered bainites and lathy tempered martensites.
 M.-L. Zhu, F.-Z. Xuan / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 4035–4042 4037

obtained from the tester. The measurement interval in HAZ and And it is obvious that the size of martensite has been reduced grad-
BM was fixed at 0.3 mm, while in WM the distance was 1 mm. ually from the partially quenched-tempered zone to the tempered
zone. In Fig. 4a, large block-like tempered martensites surrounded
3. Results and discussion by a large amount of tempered bainites can be observed. This is
different from those in Fig. 5a, where smaller tempered marten-
3.1. Microstructure characterization sites with less inter-lath tempered bainites are displayed. In fact,
tempered martensites can be enlarged due to the higher welding
Fig. 2 shows the microstructure of the base metals in IP and LP. As temperature around the fusion line.
illustrated in Fig. 2, lathy tempered martensites and granular tem- Block-like tempered martensites are illustrated in Figs. 4b and
pered bainites can be observed in both the IP and LP base metals. 5b due to the ‘partially quenching’ process in welding. In the tem-
However, the lathy tempered martensites in the IP base metal are a pered zone (Figs. 4c and 5c), granular martensites are formed as a
little wider than those in LP. This can be ascribed to the heat treat- result of the ‘tempering’ process in welding and PWHT.
ment conditions in IP and LP. The higher austenitizing temperature
in the IP base metal ensures a larger prior austenite grain size and 3.2. Correlation hardness with microstructure in HAZ
thus leading to a wider lathy martensite. But the lathy martensites
cannot be completely transformed into the tempered microstruc- Figs. 6 and 7 show the nano-hardness and micro-hardness dis-
ture due to the shorter holding time in the process of tempering in tributions along the center line of upper and lower sides SAW
IP. welding joint, respectively. It is obvious that the largest hardness
Fig. 3 shows the microstructure in WM. As indicated in Fig. 3a can be found around the fusion lines, which also indicates the
and b, the microstructure alternation around the fusion lines are commencement of HAZ. In HAZ, hardness are gradually reduced
characterized in details. It is worth noting that ferritic islands are to the level of BM. Rapid decrease of the hardness value can be
exhibited on WM near the fusion lines, and coarse grained zones observed near the fusion lines when the test location is transferred
are evident on the other side of fusion lines. The existence of soft to WM.
ferritic islands (also known as ı ferrites [22]), which will definitely As indicated in Figs. 6 and 7, the length of WM (between the
reduce the micro-hardness, can be reasonably attributed to higher two fusion lines) is larger at the upper side, which agrees well with
welding temperature at fusion zones. Unlike ı ferrites observed the actual width of WM. In fact, WM at the upper side has a width
near the fusion lines, as shown in Fig. 3c, the microstructure of WM of about 21.5 mm, whereas in the lower side, the width is approx-
has a martensite matrix with embedded strip-like bainites. imately 20.5 mm. It is also worth noting that the nano-hardness
Figs. 4 and 5 show the microstructures in IP-HAZ and LP-HAZ, value along the welding joint fluctuates greater and is larger than
respectively. In view of the high temperature tempering in PWHT, those of micro-hardness. A detailed comparison between the nano-
the whole HAZ can be divided into three regions, i.e., the fully and the micro-hardness will be discussed later. It is interesting to
quenched-tempered zone (Figs. 4a and 5a), the partially quenched- find that when the distance to weld center is below zero, the hard-
tempered zone (Figs. 4b and 5b) and the tempered zone (Figs. 4c and ness values in WM at upper and lower sides differ to each other
5c). It can be observed that microstructures in HAZ mainly consist while the hardness in WM are almost converged when the distance
of martensites and bainites, similar to the microstructures in BM. to the weld center is above zero.

Fig. 3. Microstructure observation in WM: ferritic islands were observed on WM near the fusion lines of the interfaces between IP side HAZ and WM (a), and between LP
side HAZ and WM (b); the microstructure of WM (c) mainly includes strip-like bainites and martensites martrix.
4038 M.-L. Zhu, F.-Z. Xuan / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 4035–4042

Fig. 4. Microstructures in IP HAZ consist of large block-like tempered martensites surrounded by a large amount of tempered bainites in the fully quenched-tempered zone
(a), smaller block-like tempered martensites and tempered bainites in the partially quenched-tempered zone (b) and granular martensites and tempered bainites in the
tempered zone (c).

The hardness of the material is dependent on its microstruc- teristic microstructure in HAZ. The width of martensites lath was
ture. It is important to investigate the relationship between the measured manually in a micrograph obtained around the micro-
microstructure and the micro-hardness in the inhomogeneous hardness indenter on the surface. During the measurement process,
HAZ. In this work, lathy martensite was selected as the charac- the data were recorded automatically in a graphic software pro-

Fig. 5. Microstructures in LP HAZ consist of smaller tempered martensites with less inter-lath tempered bainites in the fully quenched-tempered zone (a), smaller block-like
tempered martensites and tempered bainites in the partially quenched-tempered zone (b) and granular martensites and tempered bainites in the tempered zone (c).
 M.-L. Zhu, F.-Z. Xuan / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 4035–4042 4039

Fig. 6. Nano-hardness distribution along the center line of upper and lower sides in
the SAW welding joint.

gram. For each micro-hardness value, the lath size was obtained
through averaging at least 10 data points. Figs. 8 and 9 show the
relationship between the micro-hardness values in IP-HAZ (a) and
LP-HAZ (b) with the characteristic microstructure size in the SAW
welding joint.
As shown in Figs. 8 and 9, both the micro-hardness and the char-
acteristic size are decreased when the location changes from the
fusion lines to the base metals. In Fig. 8a, the largest martensite
lath, which approaches 5.4 ␮m, can be observed near the fusion
line in the IP HAZ, but the lath width is lower in the LP HAZ. The
lowest characteristic microstructure size is about 1.5 ␮m near the
BM in the LP HAZ (Fig. 8b). It is reasonable that due to the higher
welding temperature around the fusion line, the characteristic size
Fig. 8. Correlation between micro-hardness values in IP-HAZ (a) and LP-HAZ (b)
will be larger than other locations in the HAZ. It is also worth not- with the characteristic microstructure size at upper side of the SAW welding joint.
ing that the micro-hardness and the characteristic size almost have
the same decreasing pattern. In the IP HAZ, for instance, the varia-
tion trends of the characteristic size at both upper and lower sides latter represents the changing of the micro-hardness values in HAZ.
are quite similar; and these correlates well with the decreasing of Thus, it is suitable for choosing lathy martensites as characteristic
the micro-hardness. In the LP-HAZ, as indicated in Figs. 8b and 9b, microstructures.
the micro-hardness values are decreased slowly, and so does the
characteristic microstructure size.
The similarity of decreasing pattern between the micro- 3.3. Comparison between micro-hardness and nano-hardness
hardness and the characteristic size means that the variation of the
As mentioned before, nano-hardness values are larger than
those of micro-hardness across the whole welding joint. Similar
results have been also observed by Qian et al. [20] and Mencin et
al. [23]. It is known that the macro- and micro-hardness are too
coarse to effectively determine the strength of the surface layer,
while the nano-hardness is a more precise method [23]. Poondla et
al. [24] indicate that the micro-hardness can be affected by local
microstructures while the macro-hardness is sensitive to global
microstructures. In order to reveal the mechanisms of the testing
method dependence of hardness values, it is necessary to establish
the relations between the micro- and nano-hardness for both bulk
materials and layered surface.
In the present work, correlations of micro-hardness and nano-
hardness at the same location in the IP and LP HAZ in the welding
joint are depicted in Figs. 10 and 11. The data in the IP HAZ are
regressed polynomially, while in the LP HAZ the power law was
used for the regression. The corresponding relationships are shown
in Eqs. (1) and (2):

IP HAZ : Hnano = a0 + a1 × HV + a2 × HV2 + a3 × HV3

Fig. 7. Micro-hardness distribution along the center line of upper and lower sides
in the SAW welding joint. + a4 × HV4 + a5 × HV5 (1)
4040 M.-L. Zhu, F.-Z. Xuan / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 4035–4042

a3 = −4.54097E−5, a4 = 6.70588E−8, a5 = −3.82536E−11;

a = −1.50034E−10, b = 3.52612E−8, c = 19.18096, f = −0.95036.
As shown in Figs. 10 and 11, it is interesting to note that different
relationships between the micro-hardness and the nano-hardness
in the IP and LP HAZ are observed. This is ascribed to the local
microstructure changes. In addition, it is reasonable to rationalize
that other mechanical properties in HAZ such as strain hardening
coefficient are also inhomogeneous and microstructure dependent.

3.4. Hardness and strength of materials

3.4.1. Strength distribution in HAZ

During the past decades, many efforts have been made to cor-
relate between the hardness and strength of materials. Tabor [14]
has proposed a complex relationship between the ultimate tensile
strength  b and the micro-hardness H by taking the strain hard-
ening coefficient into consideration [25]. Following his approach,
Cahoon [15,26] presented a simplified expression relating  b and
the yield strength  s with H having the form [16]:
H
 n n
b = (3)
2.9 0.217
H 
s = (0.1)n (4)
3
where H is the micro-hardness and n is the strain hardening coef-
ficient.
As mentioned previously, the strain hardening coefficient is the
microstructure dependent, and is distributed inhomogeneously in
HAZ. The direct way to obtain the strain hardening coefficient is
based on a uniaxial tensile test. Besides, the classic Meyer hardness
measurement is also an important method [25]. Challenger and
Moteff [27] also proposed an empirical expression (Eq. (5)) for the
determination of the strain hardening coefficient by taking account
of the subgrain or dislocation cell size.
Fig. 9. Correlation between micro-hardness values in IP-HAZ (a) and LP-HAZ (b) n = k (5)
with the characteristic microstructure size at the lower side of the SAW welding
joint. where  is the subgrain size in ␮m and k is a constant equal to
0.2 ␮m.
In the present work, n in HAZ is calculated according to Eq. (5) by
using the characteristic microstructure size instead of the subgrain
(−1/c)
LP HAZ : Hnano = (a + b × HVf ) (2) size. And then n is employed in Eqs. (3) and (4) to estimate the
strength distribution in HAZ.
where HV is the micro-hardness value and Hnano is the nano- Figs. 12 and 13 show the distribution of UTS, YS and strain hard-
hardness value in GPa. a0 = 141.596, a1 = −2.31635, a2 = 0.01482, ening coefficient in IP and LP at the upper and lower sides of the

Fig. 10. Relationship between nano-hardness and micro-hardness values in IP HAZ Fig. 11. Relationship between the nano-hardness and the micro-hardness value in
at upper and lower sides of the SAW welding joint. LP HAZ at the upper and lower sides of the SAW welding joint.
 M.-L. Zhu, F.-Z. Xuan / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 4035–4042 4041

Fig. 12. UTS, YS and strain hardening coefficient in IP (a) and LP (b) at the upper
Fig. 13. UTS, YS and strain hardening coefficient in IP (a) and LP (b) at the lower side
side of the dissimilar SAW welding joint.
of the dissimilar SAW welding joint.

3.4.2. Experimental validation

dissimilar SAW welding joint, respectively. The dashed line and In order to validate the above characteristic size based cor-
dashed dot lines in Figs. 12 and 13 show the boundary of BM and relation method, the similar method for strength calculation is
WM, respectively, which locate outside of HAZ. As indicated in Figs. extended to WM and BM by presenting at least three data points in
12 and 13, UTS and YS are decreased when n increases, and a sim- each section. By averaging the strength data in WM and BM, com-
ilar trend of strength distribution can also be observed in both the parisons are made between the correlated data and tensile results
IP and LP HAZ. It seems that UTS and YS are inversely propor- and depicted in Fig. 14.
tional to n in the whole welding joint. These can be rationalized As shown in Fig. 14a, the UTS of the correlated data is close to
by the fact that in HAZ, even in WM and BM, the hardness val- the tensile results with a maximum YS difference of about 40 MPa.
ues are controlled by the lathy microstructure (lathy martensites However, in the IP and LP BM, both the tensile test results of YS and
in HAZ and BM, and lathy bainites in WM); thus UTS, YS and n UTS are larger than the correlated data (Fig. 14b and c).
will be influenced by the width and number of lathy microstruc- Since tempering will reduce the strength of materials, it is
tures. Therefore, UTS and YS decrease while n increases with important to understand the decrease of strength quantitatively.
decreasing the width of lathy microstructures in HAZ because the For the IP BM, the tempering (after quenching) temperature is
martensite has a better hardness and strength but with a lower 645 ◦ C and the temperature in PWHT is 620 ◦ C. It is reasonably
ductility. concluded that the effect of PWHT has little influence on strength
It is also worth noting that the difference between UTS and YS decrease because a large amount of martensites had been melted
in the LP HAZ increases with approaching the dashed lines at both away in the first tempering. Therefore, the correlated data in the
upper and lower sides (Figs. 12b and 13b), whereas the difference IP BM will also approach the tensile results if the YS of the IP BM
almost keeps constant in the IP HAZ (as shown in Figs. 12a and are in the range of 660–700 MPa after PWHT. For the LP BM, many
13a). The difference change between UTS and YS can be explained martensites will be melted away in the PWHT because the temper-
by the variation of the ratio of YS to UTS. In addition, an interest- ing temperature is higher than the first tempering (585 ◦ C), thus
ing relationship between the YS/UTS ratio and n is observed. For greater strength decrease would be observed in LP BM. Therefore, a
instance, the YS/UTS ratio almost keeps constant when n shows good agreement between the correlated data and the tensile results
little variation in the IP HAZ around the dashed lines; whereas in is obtained in the LP BM when both UTS and YS are decreased about
the LP HAZ, the YS/UTS ratio decreases with increasing n. There- 100 MPa. Based on the analyses above, it is reasonably concluded
fore, the above developed Eq. (5) can be used in calculating n in that the strength distribution in HAZ can be estimated by using the
HAZ. characteristic microstructure size based correlation method.
4042 M.-L. Zhu, F.-Z. Xuan / Materials Science and Engineering A 527 (2010) 4035–4042

ditional micro-hardness testing method and the nanoindentation

technique. The characteristic microstructure size based method
was introduced to correlate the hardness with the microstructure,
and thus obtain the strength distribution in HAZ. The main conclu-
sions are listed as follows:

(1) Inhomogeneous microstructures were exhibited along the dis-

similar welding joint, and both the micro and nano-hardness
show a rapid decrease around the fusion line on the WM side
where ı ferrites are observed. Nano-hardness values are larger
than those of micro-hardness in the whole welding joint.
(2) Different relationships between the micro-hardness and the
nano-hardness in the IP and LP HAZ were developed, which
was ascribed to the various microstructures. Other mechanical
properties in HAZ, such as strength and strain hardening coef-
ficient, were also observed to have a microstructure dependent
trend.
(3) The lath width of martensites with a similar changing pattern to
micro-hardness values in both the IP and LP HAZ was selected
as the characteristic microstructure size. The distribution of
strength and strain hardening coefficient in HAZ was obtained
in terms of the characteristic microstructure size based correla-
tion method. A good agreement was observed for the correlated
strength and the experimental results and therefore gave us
confidence for the practical application.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the supports provided by National

Natural Science Foundations of China (50835003, 10972078). FZ
would also wish to thank the Research Fund for Doctoral Program of
Higher Education (200802510003) and Natural Science Foundation
of Shanghai (09JC1404400).

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