Method for improving the hydrogen-induced stress corrosion cracking resistance of steel articles

摘要

The invention relates to a method for improving the H-induced stress corrosion cracking resistance of articles consisting of low-alloy to medium-alloy structural steels which come into contact with aqueous media containing H2S and which are manufactured either by hot-rolling with or without subsequent heat treatment or by TM-rolling with or without accelerated cooling or by cold-rolling with subsequent heat treatment and which are afterwards no longer cold-formed, or only to the extent of less than 2%. For a further increase in the H-induced stress corrosion cracking resistance of structural steel articles, but with only a low cost of the measures required for this purpose, it is proposed that the articles are subjected to final annealing for a period of at least 2 seconds at a temperature which is at least 540 DEG C and has, depending on the manufacturing process, the following upper limits: 30 K below Ac1 for hot-rolled or TM-rolled or normalised articles; 30 K below the last applied tempering temperature for heat-treated articles.