Welding of Fully Austenitic Steels for Service at Elevated Temperature

Abstract

Fully austenitic steels as wrought and cast alloys are widely used in petio chemical and fertilizer industry for steam reforming processes and urea services. Austenitic 18-8 stainless steels are regarded as readily weldable steel without any risk of hot cracking by the addition of certain percentage of ferrite in the weld metal but fully austenitic steels are very crack sensitive.