Hydrogen-induced cold cracking in heat-affected zone of low-carbon high-strength steel

The Y-groove cracking test by submerged arc welding was employed to study the susceptibility of a low-carbon high-strength steel to hydrogen-induced cold cracking (HICC). The morphology of hydrogen cracks was observed using an electron probe microscope. The results showed that the heat-affected zone (HAZ) has a higher susceptibility to HICC than the weld metal and that increasing heat input can improve the HICC resistance of the weldment. The intergranular microcracking is the main HICC mode at the lowest heat input condition, accompanied with some transgranular microcracks attached to complex inclusions. In combination with phase transformation behaviour in sub-zones, the effect of the phase transformation sequence is proposed to try to illustrate the fact that the fine-grained HAZ has higher probability of hydrogen cracking than the coarse-grained HAZ owing to the occurrence of hydrogen enrichment in the fine-grained HAZ after the transformation.