A round-robin test with thermal simulation of the welding HAZ to draw CCT diagrams: a need for harmonized procedures and microconstituent terminologies

Thermal simulations of heat affected zone (HAZ) have been widely used. This is an economic expedite process for phase transformation evaluations in steels when subjected to weld thermal cycles as well as to draw continuous cooling transformation (CCT) diagrams. Different approaches for the simulation and parameter settings have been used by several researchers, yet leading to not always even results. Thus, it was proposed a round-robin test trial performed by different laboratories, aiming to evidence potential sources of error or inadequacy of the approaches. A High Strength Low Alloy (HSLA) steel was used as a case study. Despite the limited number of tests, the results show low robustness when comparing the outcomes from the different laboratories and point out for the need to take three actions. The first one is to implement a cooperative and multi-institutional program to assess the effect of relevant simulation parameters, such as the heating rate and holding time at peak temperature, on the final microstructure and transformation temperatures as well as on the hardness for a given cooling rate. The second is to propose calibration procedures for the simulation and measurement systems. The third action is to stimulate experts in this area to develop a guideline of terminology for constituents in the heat affected zone of ferritic steels.