AUSTENITIC AND DUPLEX STAINLESS STEELS

USED AS CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS

BY

Abdullahi Abdulraheem (IWP)

Department of Welding and Fabrication Engineering Technology

Jigawa State Polytechnic, Dutse.
EMAIL: [email protected]
 ABSTRACT:
Stainless steel is today more and more used as an engineering material
in architecture, building and welding constructions. It is a material with
high aesthetic attraction, good weldability, formability and high strength.
Further aspect is durability of the material and no need for protective
coatings against corrosion or fire. Austenitic stainless are the most used
stainless steels in building applications. The trend today is an increased
use of high strength duplex stainless steels. Typical stainless steel
properties are discussed in this paper such as formability, increased
strength by cold deformation, corrosion resistance and weldability.
Different applications as of today and future possibilities are shown as
well as different design criteria. For stainless steels, the most used joining
technique is arc welding. This paper will highlight some answers to some
specific question such as how should a weld look like to fulfill mechanical
properties (fatigue), removal of weld oxides (corrosion) and aesthetic
appearance (prestigious material). To reach sufficient corrosion and
mechanical properties, a correct filler material must be use as well as
qualified welding procedure and welding operator.
 INTRODUCTION

• Stainless steel is one of the most prestige architectural and

building materials that ever exist. Stainless steel can still be seen
in old prestige buildings, like Chrysler building with its
ornamented top in New York. Since then popularity of stainless
steel has increased within architect, building engineers as well as
welding engineers.
• There are good reasons for looking at stainless steel as the future
dominant construction material. Today, more than 90 percent of
all building applications can be constructed using small number of
stainless steels. The common ones are ferritic and austenitic
stainless steels.
• Other important aspects are life cycle costs and the ideal of
sustainable development.
 STAINLESS STEEL AS A CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL
• This small discussion of the design with stainless steel is based on some
chosen literature references. One of the most important at the moment is the
handbook from Euro Inox.
• Another important reference is the new Euro code – Euro code 3 for steel
construction.
• Stainless steel is often compared with carbon steel for the obvious reason
that they have very similar mechanical properties. The largest differences in
physical and mechanical properties between stainless steel and carbon steel
are that, stainless steel has:

• Higher thermal expansion (austenitic steels)

• Lower thermal conductivity
• Strong deformation hardening
• Higher strength over a large temperature range
• Good energy absorbing ability (toughness)
• Better fire resistance properties
 STRESS – STRAIN PROPERTIES OF STAINLESS STEEL

• Stress – strain properties of stainless steel are different

from that of carbon steel in many ways. While carbon
steel usually shows linear elastic behavior up to yield
point and thereafter a plateau before nonlinear stress-
strain curve. Stainless steel behaves nonlinearly all the
way without such clear change from linear to non-linear.
• This is the reason why the yield point in stainless steels is
defined as certain percentage of permanent strain which
is conventionally 0.2% strain, as indicated in figure 2
below.
 CORROSION PROPERTIES OF STAINLESS STEEL

• That stainless steel has high corrosion

resistance properties didn’t mean it can’t
corrode it does corrode in some
circumstances.
• The most frequent corrosion phenomenon in
construction is pitting corrosion, crevice
corrosion, galvanic corrosion and stress
corrosion cracking. As can be seen in figure 3
below.
(a)Pitting corosion (b) Crevic corrosion (c) Galvanic corrosion (d) Stress corrosion
 WELDED STRUCTURES – DIFFERENT DESIGN CRITERIA AND APPLICATIONS
• Welding constructions of stainless steel differ somewhat from carbon steel
construction.
• There are good applications where stainless steel is used as a replacement
for traditional carbon steel.
• The use of stainless steel is expected to increase in the near future in
areas like:
• Where difficulty or cost of maintenance makes other alternatives
uneconomical in the life cycle cost analysis
• When structural integrity in critical components is important and the
inspection routines are either costly or impossible to follow
• Where the good mechanical properties of stainless steel like high strength
can be combined with inherent excellent corrosion properties
• When aesthetic appearance is of high importance
 DESIGN AGAINST FATIGUE

• Fatigue phenomenon is important for component or

details in structure that are subjected to load / stress
variations.
• It is often said that fatigue is the most common cause of
failure in structures and machine components. Like in
carbon steel constructions the combination of stress
concentrations and defects at welded joints makes them
the most risky details in construction.
• By following good design practice a lot can be done to
reduce the sensitivity for fatigue. This is in the first hand
question of appropriate detail design, having a
consecutive design strategy of choosing a structural detail
that has good fatigue strength as possible.
 WELDING OF STAINLESS STEELS

General:
• The most common austenitic stainless steels
used for construction purposes have very good
weldability. As we can see in table 3 below
where some of the weldability factors for the
different steels are given.

Weldability:
• Table 3: Weldability of some steel grades
 MICR STEEL FILLER WELDI HYDR GRAIN 475 HOT
O TYPE MATE NG OGEN GROW EMBRI CRACK
STRUC RIAL TEMP CRACK TTLEM ING
TURE ERATU ING ENT
RE

Marte 1.4021 Austen 200- Very No No No

nsitic /420 itic 400 sensiti
Marte ve
nsitic

Ferritic 1.4016 Ferritic 200- Sensiti Yes Yes No

/430 Austen 400 ve
itic

Auste 1.440 Auste RT No No No Some

nitic 1/316 nitic
1.453 ‘’ RT No No No Some
9/904
L

1.485 ‘’ RT No No No Some
/310S
Duple 1.446 Duple RT No Some Yes Small
x 2/220 x
5

Carbo Ferriti RT to Sensit Yes No Small

n c 150 ive
steel
• Welding process:
• Most of the common used fusion welding methods can be
use for welding stainless steels. When welding thin gauge
materials gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW), plasma arc
welding (PAW) and laser welding (LW) are the most used
methods.
• This of course increases productivity when welding in the
field compared to GTAW but when welding thicker materials
on site the trend today is the use of flux-core wires. They
give the welder a good weld pool control and high
productivity.
• Thin walled constructions may be designed with an overlap
joint. In such cases resistance spot / seam welding are often
used due to high productivity. The design engineer must
however be aware of the risk of crevice corrosion.
Consumables:
1-Duplex steels
• Duplex steels should be welded with designed fillers materials in
order to optimize the microstructure, composition, mechanical
and corrosion properties.
2-Austenitic steels
• All the austenitic steels presented in this article have very good
weldability. They can be welded autogenously or with the use of
filler.
3-Ferritic steels
• Those steels do not have good weldability compare to other
steel presented here. The sensitivity to grain growth necessitated
the need to weld with very low heat input. They are mostly
welded with austenitic fillers to give a weldment with high
ductility as possible.
Weld Distortion:
• In common with other metals, stainless steel suffers
from distortion due to welding. However, the
distortion of stainless steel particularly austenitic
grades is greater than that of carbon steels due to a
higher coefficient of thermal expansion and lower
thermal conductivity.
Post- weld cleaning:
• Post weld cleaning is an important and very often
forgotten item. Cleaning can be very often being
important if optimum corrosion resistant is required
or if an architect has chosen stainless steel for
esthetic reasons.
 POST WELD HEAT TREATMENT (PWHT) OF
WELDED JOINTS
• From the material point of view, it is very
unusual to heat stainless steel after welding.
• If the construction must be heat treated to
reduce weld stresses, we recommend quench
annealing at 1050Ċ-1100Ċ.
• Stress relieving at 600Ċ - 650Ċ can be carried
out if the steel has low carbon content (less
than 0.030% )
 SUMMARY

• The most important properties in stainless steel compared to

carbon steel for constructional use are:
• No specific yield point in stainless steel like in carbon steels
• Stainless steel deform harden much more than carbon steel
• Post weld cleaning is important for corrosion aesthetic reason
• Stainless steel generally has better toughness than carbon steels
• Stainless steels are more sensitive to high heat inputs during
welding
• Detail design and fabrication is important for the fatigue
properties like it is for carbon steels
• To design and construct using stainless steel is not difficult but a
bit different.
 CONCLUSION
• In conclusion, it is appropriate to refer to Mr. Payet-
Gaspard’s words
‘’Stainless steel is one of the construction industry’s
trump cards. With stainless steel, the imagination is
librated, boldness and safety are reconciled and
creative passion and responsibilities become allied…..
Architects should not hesitate to use stainless steel in
building construction. Those who dare will win every
time’’