Effect of ultrasonic impact treatment on the stress corrosion cracking of 304 stainless steel welded joints

High tensile weld residual stress is an important factor contributing to stress corrosion cracking (SCC). Ultrasonic impact treatment (UIT) can produce compressive stresses on the surface of welded joints that negate the tensile stresses to enhance the SCC resistance of welded joints. In the present work, X-ray diffraction method was used to obtain the distribution of residual stress induced by UIT. The results showed that UIT could cause a large compressive residual stress in access of 300 MPa on the surface of the material. A 3D finite element model was established to simulate the UIT process by using the finite element software ABAQUS. The residual stress distribution of the AISI 304 stainless steel induced by UIT was predicted by finite element analysis. In order to demonstrate the improvement of the SCC resistance of the welded joints, the specimens were immersed in boiling 42% magnesium chloride solution during SCC testing, and untreated specimen cracked after immersion for 23 h. In contrast, treated specimens with different impact duration were tested for 1000 h without visible stress corrosion cracks. The microstructure observation results revealed that a hardened layer was formed on the surface and the initial coarse-grained structure in the surface was refined into ultrafine grains. The above results indicate that UIT is an effective approach for protecting weldments against SCC.