Residual stress evaluation by x-ray diffraction and hole-drilling in an API 5L X70 steel pipe bent by hot induction

Abstract

The API 5L X70 steel is used in high-pressure gas transmission pipelines. Because of this, knowledge of presence of residual stress and their magnitude is important to assess the material integrity in service. For the pipeline manufacturing, tubes need to be curved which is often made using the hot induction bending process. This process can introduce different residual stress depending of tube position. For this research, in order to evaluate the residual stress, was used an API 5L X70 tube that was previously curved by hot induction process. Samples were taken from the extrados, intrados, neutral line and straight section of the curved tube. Residual stresses were studied by two conventional methods: X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Hole-Drilling, which are destructive and non-destructive methods, respectively, in order to assess their qualitative responses. Each of these methods presents particular methodologies in sample preparation and material analysis, but also they differ in factors such time consumption and cost of the analysis. The qualitative responses obtained by the two different methods were comparable and satisfactory and pointed out the existence of a compressive residual stress state in steel pipe.