Study on the Comparison of Electron Beam Welding and Hybrid Laser-Arc Welding of Thick High-Manganese Steel Plate for Cryogenic Applications

Abstract

Environmental protection policies have led to a focus on clean energy from Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and thus, its demand is increasing. Several studies for the development of cryogenic materials and fabrication technologies for storage and delivery of LNG are presented worldwide. Recently, International Maritime Organization (IMO) acknowledged that high-manganese steel was one such cryogenic material for application in LNG storage. Thus, high-manganese steel is expected to be increasingly used in the cryogenic storage industry because of its excellent material properties such as low-temperature toughness and tensile strength. A variety of researches on the welding technologies are available, including arc welding, laser welding and hybrid laser-arc welding. However, electron beam welding (EBW) has not been widely studied. In this work, EBW was investigated for the thick high-manganese steel plate and its mechanical properties were evaluated and compared with the characteristics of hybrid laser-arc welding. Our study indicates that EBW exhibits better mechanical properties than the hybrid laser-arc welding and it can be an effective potential candidate technology for welding of thick high-manganese steel plate with application in cryogenic storage tank.