Fracture toughness of ISO 3183 X80M (API 5L X80) steel friction stir welds

Friction stir welding (FSW) is a solid-state joining process with numerous advantages such as good dimensional stability and repeatability, which is widely used Al alloys and with a great potential for critical joining applications involving high melting temperature alloys. Twelve millimeter thick plates of ISO 3183 X80M (API 5L X80) steel was friction stir welded using two passes on both sides of the plate using ceramic tools. Different heat inputs were obtained using a fix travel (welding) speed in combination with several spindle speeds. The fracture toughness of the two-pass joints was evaluated at 25 °C using the critical crack tip opening displacement (CTODm), revealing that joints produced with lower spindle speeds presented higher toughness at the heat-affected zone (HAZ) and stir zone (SZ), which are comparable with the base metal (BM) toughness. On the other hand, joints produced using higher spindle speeds presented low fracture toughness at the SZ and elevated CTODm toughness at the HAZ. The joints produced with low spindle speeds showed CTODm-values above the offshore standard (DNV-OS-F101) requirements.